By Philip Cornwall THE players, officials and fans of Charlton Athletic were still on cloud nine yesterday, following their miraculous Monday when Sasa Ilic's penalty save took them into the Premiership. They spent Tuesday morning enjoying a civic reception at which the team was awarded the freedom of Greenwich. Yet already work has started on the even bigger task of keeping them in the top flight. A key part of Charlton's success story has been the return to their traditional ground of The Valley after their nomadic years at Selhurst Park and Upton Park as tenants. However, the ground that once held 75,000 for an FA Cup tie had a capacity this season of just 16,000. Yet that is double the capacity when the club first returned there, in 1992, and the extension of the west stand this summer will bring crowds up to the 20,000 mark. They are not finished, though. Managing director Peter Varney has ambitious plans for the rest of the ground and developments are moving at quite a pace. People might think that the club is growing too quickly, but it's all being done in a controlled way, Varney said. We will move at a fast rate and the reason is that a lot of the grants we can get are related to the Millennium and are only available for a two-year period. We've got a great opportunity. While the ground is made ready for Premiership football, for the players, there will be a chance of a well-earned break. Manager Alan Curbishley explained after the game that there would be no end-of-season trip, though, as the players needed some time of their own. It has been a very long season, and we're now only five weeks away from the start of pre-season training. Though I may give the players some extra time off as we saw today, they are a very fit bunch. Just look at how Mark Bright (aged 35), who played most of the game, and Mark Bowen (34), who played all of it, coped. And they're not as fit as the others. Curbishley has refused to discuss his plans for next season, beyond saying that goalkeeping hero Ilic had been signed to a long-term contract, and that there were four players out of contract about whom decisions would be made later in the week. Ilic signed a four-year deal worth £4000 a week on Friday night, though it was kept secret from the rest of the team until after the game. Ilic will also receive a signing-on fee in the region of £150,000, a sum which Curbishley will consider excellent value given that the Serbian-born Australian cost the club nothing to sign six months ago from non-League St Leonards Stamcroft. When Curbishley does want to move into the transfer market, he has been promised an £8m windfall of television money to strengthen his squad, a huge sum for a club whose record signing is Clive Mendonca at £700,000. Curbishley himself, as well as many of his players, will be rewarded for their achievements through pay increases written into their contracts which took into account the possibility of the club reaching the Premiership. However, such bonuses have not enabled the club to hold on to assistant manager Les Reed. He has passed up the chance to help the Addicks' Premiership campaign next season by taking up a post as England's new director of technical development, a post that includes looking after the national Under-15 team. Reed has played a key role in the clubs youth programme, which produced Richard Rufus, Shaun Newton and Steve Brown of Monday's heroes. Reed said: I've thoroughly enjoyed my three years at Charlton which have ended on such a high and I'll be sad to leave them. But I'm thrilled to have the opportunity of working alongside Howard Wilkinson with the England Youth teams and the football academies. So much of the club's success on the day was down to the man Curbishley described as a snip at £700,000, the hat-trick hero Mendonca. Curbishley revealed yesterday that when he signed him at the start of the season he was worried the then Grimsby man would back out. He agreed to sign, but needed to go back to the North East for a wedding, and was then going away for a week with his brother. I was convinced someone else would come in and steal him, but he had given me his word, and he kept it. The one let-down for Mendonca on an otherwise perfect day was the attitude of some Sunderland fans. Although London-born, he was raised in the town and grew up supporting the Rokermen. While the overwhelming majority applauded the Charlton team, a couple stayed behind to threaten Mendonca as he walked into the tunnel at Wembley, saying ‘Don't go back to Sunderland' and if I do they said they'd slit my throat - you don't say things like that. I love Sunderland and it meant something to me when Peter Reid congratulated me. I was a bit gutted but it was just a few mindless people because the majority they're the best fans in the world. But I won't allow this to take the shine off my day. Or his future, as Mendonca looks forward to the Premiership. And appropriately, Mike Flanagan, who scored 109 league goals for the club including 11 in 1985/86 the last time they were promoted to the top flight, paid tribute to his successor. Clive has been a tremendous signing, said Flanagan. At any level you need someone who can score a goal for you, and he made a great impact getting a hat-trick. You need somebody in your side like him and he'll do well next year. Charlton know there is a lot of work to do to keep the club up there but everyone will work together to make it happen, and if the team play to the standards set by Mendonca at Wembley, then it might just happen.

SUNDERLAND WILL RALLY AROUND NIALL   Harry Pratt Reports NIALL QUINN showed quite astounding nerve and courage to rise above the desperate doom and gloom that suddenly suffocated Sunderland's masses at Wembley on Monday evening, to speak of the challenge now awaiting them next season. Whether, as time goes by, they can ever bring themselves to look at a video of their play-off final defeat to Charlton is doubtful - but if not, Quinn's colleagues must at least press the fast-forward button to hear his post-match interview. For while they lay on the Wembley turf wishing they were six-feet under rather than a scattered posse of shattered souls, the Republic of Ireland striker was issuing a rallying call on Sky television of quite extraordinary passion. The message was simple. Sunderland are the best team in the First Division and next season they will prove it. Not in some free-flowing, free-for-all, end-of-season goal extravaganza that is fraught with danger, either. No, next time they will go up, winning the title and therefore automatic promotion. Can it be that simple? Despite the words being anything but easy to say in view of the circumstances, they will prove even harder to fulfil if Peter Reid's men sit and ponder too long on what could and, arguably, should have been theirs by right - they finished third to Charlton's fourth in the League table. Losing in the FA Cup Final is tough but such matters are trivial alongside being denied Premiership soccer by the slenderest margin in play-off final history. Imagine how poor Michael Gray felt the morning after his penalty miss - reportedly costing Sunderland £20m in potential top-flight television revenue. Then consider that those emotions will last an entire summer and you will begin to get an idea of the likely state of the left wing back's mind come pre-season in July and the prospect of starting another campaign chasing the same goal that caused his acute anguish in the first place. Not an easy situation, and one manager Reid must combat quickly to achive two key goals. Firstly to restore a decent spirit to the squad by the start of 1998-99, and secondly to keep his talented bunch of youngsters at the club together for another concerted crack at regaining the club's place among the elite. While the former may take a little time, for the latter Reid only has to point to the club's record-breaking striker Kevin Phillips, who yesterday pledged his future to the Rokermen, as the example to follow. The ex-Watford star smashed Brian Clough's long-standing goals record on Monday with his 35th of the season, exploits that have brought transfer interest from Premiership sides Leicester and West Ham. However the 24-year-old Phillips, the Nationwide's Player of the Season, insists he is more than happy to stay at the Stadium of Light and ensure Reid's side go one better next season. I'll state now categorically that I'll be at Sunderland next year and all this transfer talk is a load of nonsense. I'm happy at Sunderland,'' said Phillips, who started his career at non-league Baldock. ''It's just paper talk and I've never heard anything. I'm happy here and I'd be a mug to go. Playing in front of 40,000 every week is unbelievable and what a place to play. When I had to come out before the game to pick up the Player of the Year award it was phenomenal and even after the game they were still magnificent. When you are successful in the North-East you are really successful. It's a brilliant place to be. They can go on putting in the papers what they want but I'm staying at Sunderland. On busting Clough's record, he added: ''It's a great achievement and I'm happy with that, but obviously I'm disappointed at the moment. It's going to take me a couple of weeks to get over it but once we've done so I can sit back and realise what I've achieved this year and then put it into perspective. I imagine we'll start as favourites for promotion next year and we'll learn from this. The manager will bring in a couple of players over the summer and we'll be stronger for the new campaign.'' Clearly Quinn's sentiments are already rubbing off on his teammates. The rest of the division must watch out: Sunderland will be right up there again 12 months from now.

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