London City Lionesses survive Birmingham comeback to win WSL promotion | Women’s football

London City Lionesses were promoted to the Women’s Super League after an outstanding individual goal from Isobel Goodwin helped them edge to a dramatic 2-2 draw away to their nearest title rivals Birmingham City on a gripping final day of the Women’s Championship season.

Goodwin’s stunning long-range strike and a Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah header put the visitors 2-0 up and Birmingham, backed by a club-record crowd of 8,749 knowing they had to win to be promoted, fought back valiantly through Emily van Egmond’s header and Cho So-hyun’s volley – four minutes from time – to set up a frantic finish but the visitors clung on to the draw they needed to clinch top spot.

Owned by Michele Kang, Lionesses will be the WSL’s first independently run club and the wealthy American businesswoman has made no secret of her intention to turn them into a Champions League force. Her investment in the past two transfer windows brought the English women’s second tier into uncharted territory and therefore it was perhaps fitting that it should be Goodwin, the division’s record signing – purchased for a fee believed to be in excess of £100,000 from Sheffield United – who played a key role in this promotion decider.

Kang, who also owns the record eight-times women’s European champions Lyon and the NWSL side Washington Spirit, was in the executive boxes at a noisy St Andrew’s, sitting near to Birmingham’s owner Tom Wagner, in what was a clash between the second tier’s two big-spending promotion rivals , with the league’s chief executive Nikki Doucet and chair Dawn Airey also in attendance.

The game was the first in the history of the English women’s second tier to be broadcast live by Sky Sports, such was the magnitude of the occasion with promotion on the line, and viewers were rewarded with a box-office finale as Birmingham pushed for a winner in 10 minutes of second-half stoppage time.

Both teams had efforts cleared off the line in a tense first half, with firstly Boye-Hlorkah denying Van Egmond, before Birmingham’s Rebecca Holloway did well to hook away a Boye-Hlorkah effort at the other end. Goodwin also forced Adrianna Franch into a fine low save before the break as the away side slightly edged the goalless first 45 minutes.

The 22-year-old former Aston Villa forward Goodwin then produced a goal-of-the-season contender to open the scoring, skilfully evading two challenges before launching a powerful strike from long range that flew into the top corner. It was soon 2-0 when Boye-Hlorkah headed inside the far post from a corner, before Van Egmond gave the hosts’ hope from close range and then the substitute Cho had them believing, when she volleyed in superbly, but the visitors held on.