Charlton Athletic Women

Promotion arrived on penalties. In May 2026, Charlton Athletic Women beat Leicester City 4-3 in a shootout in the promotion play-off final, going up to the Women's Super League under manager Karen Hills.

None of that was guaranteed by where the club started. It began in 1991 as Bromley Borough, formed by players who had left Millwall Lionesses, then became Croydon W.F.C. three years later before Charlton Athletic F.C. took the team over in 2000 and gave it its current name. The men's club dropped it in 2007 when money ran short, and the Charlton Athletic Community Trust kept it going until Thomas Sandgaard, who also owns the men's side, bought the women's team in February 2021 and returned it to professional status.

The club now plays at The Valley, sharing the men's ground after a hybrid pitch was laid there and the move was made permanent in April 2024; before that, home games were played at The Oakwood. Red shirts and white shorts carry the same colours as the men's team, and the nickname, The Addicks, is shared too. Across the river in south-east London, Millwall Lionesses remain the club Charlton fans measure themselves against.

Eniola Aluko played for Charlton in the years before the 2007 collapse, one of several players who passed through a team that had to be rebuilt more than once before it got back to where it started.