Bird and Collins fire Derby to promotion to Championship with win over Carlisle

After the extent of their recent plight, the unbridled joy of this 2-0 final-day win over already relegated Carlisle to seal automatic promotion back to the Championship means a return to where a club like this belongs.

GOING UP, GOING UP: Derby County's Ebou Adams celebrates with fans after his side finished runners up in League One. Pic: Joe Giddens, PA Wire.

League 1: Derby 2 Carlisle 0

Derby are back. Not yet anywhere near their highest heights; the quest for Premier League football remains an ambition for some unspecified point in the future at the conclusion of what has been a wholesale rebuild of a club that came perilously close to disappearing altogether.