Peter Varney's Charlton Athletic diaries: The stories before, during and after that epic 1998 First Division play-off final win over Sunderland

Players bought expensive champagne and charged it to Alan Curbishley's room, Clive Mendonca's hat-trick is the best one at Wembley and you just had to admire penalty hero Sasa Ilic's self-confidence

Every month South London Sport: Charlton Athletic Edition is catching up with Peter Varney, the club’s former chief executive and a boyhood fan of the club, to get his tales and inside info from when he was in a key position of responsibility in SE7.

In this fifth instalment, Varney talks about the 1998 First Division play-off final win against Sunderland.

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ADDICKS BOARD CHANGED THEIR APPROACH FROM BEING A SELLING CLUB AND THEIR REWARD WAS PROMOTION TO THE PROMISED LAND OF THE PREMIERSHIP

The 1998 First Division play-off final is rightly regarded as one of the greatest games played at the old Wembley. Charlton Athletic’s match against Sunderland see-sawed between glory and despair. It finished 4-4 after extra-time and the shredded nerves of supporters, not to mention players and coaching staff, then had to endure a penalty shootout, which the Addicks won 7-6. Clive Mendonca, a Sunderland fan, scored a hat-trick, the first player to achieve the feat in a play-off final.

It seemed the way Charlton had been doing things before that 1997-98 season was they would develop a player and then sell them.

Chris Wright, the owner of QPR, had made a £1.2million offer for Shaun Newton.

It triggered off a discussion at board level about where we go from here.