Newport County 2-1 Notts County
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Newport hero Mark O'Brien: 'We pushed to the end'
Newport County pulled off an astonishing League Two relegation escape as they beat Notts County.
Despite being 11 points adrift in March, the Exiles instead condemned Hartlepool to the drop to the National League.
A late winner from Mark O'Brien kept Newport up on a dramatic final day.
The home side opened the scoring on 32 minutes when Mickey Demetriou fired home a penalty after Haydn Hollis tripped Lenell John-Lewis in the box.
The visitors levelled things when Jorge Grant prodded home on 61 minutes.
It was a tense, nervous encounter in front of a sell-out crowd at Rodney Parade, with Jon Stead shooting wide for the Magpies just five minutes in, before defender Demetriou, League Two's player of the month for April, made it four goals in his last seven outings from the spot.
Ryan Bird's long-range effort just missed its target and it proved costly as within a minute Grant found space in the box to level things.
But on 89 minutes O'Brien chested the ball down and fired home to spark scenes of wild celebration in south Wales.
Back from the brink
It has been a season of ups and downs for Newport, who have languished towards the bottom of the League Two table for much of the campaign.
The Exiles were bottom of the EFLm with just one win from their first nine league matches when manager Warren Feeney was sacked in September and ex-Stevenage boss Graham Westley came in to replace him.
A initial upturn of form coincided with Westley's arrival as Newport went seven games unbeaten in all competitions, including three successive league wins, in October and November.
That unbeaten run ended, however, as they then went 12 games without a win from November into January.
Off the pitch, club secretary Graham Bean left in December after just three weeks, telling BBC Wales he "could not work" with Westley and days later the Newport boss was initially asked to leave an extraordinary post-match press conference before calling a journalist a "clown" in a heated interview.
The club eventually parted company with Westley on 9 March after their 4-0 defeat by Leyton Orient left them 11 points adrift of safety.
Club legend Mike Flynn, who had been brought back as a player by Westley, took over as manager, with Lennie Lawrence coming in as his assistant as the Exiles began their remarkable turnaround.
Flynn has won seven of his 12 games in charge and it proved enough to save the Welsh side in one of the most memorable survival fights ever in the EFL.