The whole town of Stevenage will have been given a lift by promotion to League One says manager Steve Evans.
Boro needed three points from their final two games but managed it in the first of them, winning 2-0 against Grimsby Town in front of an almost full Lamex Stadium.
The final whistle brought the fans pouring onto the playing surface but it was in the bowels of the West Stand that the Boro boss saw the true meaning of what his side have done this year.
Evans said: "I went down the tunnel to see my family and the chairman as the final whistle went and as I'm going to see my wife, I saw two gentlemen that are older than me walking along and they’ve got tears in their eyes.
"And that was not only about the promotion but about what the town was about today.
"They are Stevenage people, born and bred, who have been around the club all their lives, been season ticket holders from the non-league days to now.
"They were hugging into me with tears in their eyes and they were trembling.
"That's what it means to the town.
"And to see all the youngsters here. They are not wearing big Premier League shirts anymore, they are wearing Stevenage shirts.
"That means a lot to us. We are the town of Stevenage and we want to represent the town of Stevenage with pride
"So we are going to try and do that in League One."
The "magical day" was sealed with goals from Jamie Reid and Luther James-Wildin in 10 second-half minutes, putting an already fervent Lamex into a state of sheer ecstasy.
And that noise impressed the boss who has seen a promotion or two in his time.
Evans said: "Myself, the chairman and Leon [Hunter] went to work when last season finished and we went with what the chairman made available to us.
"We knew we could build a team that would do this town proud.
"For five years you would have shut the curtains, you wouldn’t want to watch it, but the town is not thinking that today.
"They’re going home and they're really proud. The atmosphere in here today was as good as I've seen it at Elland Road or the New York Stadium.
"It was bouncing, especially when we scored and we’ve obviously found a striker in Luther Wildin. I gave him a cameo at Swindon and he comes up with that finish.
"But the pride that I am bursting with is for the players and of course to my wife and my family.
"If everything's right behind you, you can focus on what’s in front of you."
Evans was always confident that he could guide the club to promotion and put the seeds of an idea into chairman's Phil Wallace's head before agreeing to take on the Boro job.
He said: "I can remember when I met the chairman before coming in and he was talking about staying up and I said that's the easy part, what are we going to do in the summer?
"That wasn’t being disrespectful because the players that were here last year should have been in the middle of the table comfortably.
"We let some good players go because to go from that mid group to the top group, you have to be a little bit better or a little bit younger or a little bit fitter.
We started off great. I think we would have been promoted months ago had it not been for the injury crisis we've had.
We had huge, huge players missing so from that point of view, the dressing room has come through that.
"We asked some players to step up and play 50, 60 games.
"So they’ll have a couple of days off now and then we'll try and do things right and we'll get ready to go to Barrow."
And, with that now familiar glint in their eye, Evans says the players will go through a tough couple of weeks.
"After we finish the season properly, the boys are going to go away for a few days and have some fitness assessment programmes," he said with a smile.
"And then we'll all go for our summer holidays but in between I'll be talking to Leon and possibly the chairman this week, just planning what we are going to do next season."
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