Promotion-winning Dover manager Jake Leberl admitted he was overwhelmed after taking the club back up to National League South.

Dover deservedly won 2-0 at Dartford in the Isthmian Premier play-off final on Monday.

That left an emotional Leberl to admit: “Overwhelmed a little bit, to be honest. Obviously, it's been such a rollercoaster, hasn't it?

“From very early on, it was really apparent that we've got a good group.

“But to win promotion in amongst all the other teams that are established, and established managers and established players, just goes to show, doesn't it? You can win things with kids.

“At the start of the season we were scratching about. I'll be brutally honest, even the boys that have had double relegations were looking to get out of this club. The negativity that surrounded it, it was toxic and it was horrendous, to be honest.

“But I knew what I was coming into. I didn't come back here to be a manager. I came back here to assist Mitch Brundle.

“Obviously, it worked out the way it did. It was a tough relegation last year, maybe in hindsight, I should have changed a few more players (when I took over) but I'm a very loyal guy and I want to work with players and make them better.

“Whether I believed we'd come strong to get promotion, I'm not so sure. But I did think we'd come strong and we've come strong in the play-off final away at Dartford, who've had a tremendous season by the way themselves.”

Leberl insisted having the right characters among his squad was a key ingredient in Dover’s success.

After leading the division for most of the first half of the campaign, Dover won just three games out of 13 after Christmas.

“I was never going to panic,” insisted Leberl. “But what was important, was that I had the right characters in the dressing room.

“There's a lot of lads here that haven't played many minutes, and they're the ones that normally it starts with, because they're desperate to play, and negativity spreads. Why am I not playing? Why this? We had none of that.

Read more: Dartford 0-2 Dover Athletic match report

“The lads who haven't played much have been as big a part as the lads that have. That's massive. I only wanted players who want to be here.

“I say to them, whether they're under contract or whatever, if you don't want to be here, there's the door.”

It means Leberl has won promotion in his first full season in charge. He’s worked under Chris Kinnear as his assistant but he’s been able to mould something special under his stewardship.

“It's mental, isn't it? It really is, but I had an ethos,” said Leberl.

“I've worked with some unbelievable people, and I knew what I wanted. I wanted big, fit, strong boys with good attitudes who wanted to progress.

“First and foremost, they want to progress their own careers - all of them. There's no lad here that doesn't want to play higher.

“Often you can sign boys that are on their way down, and a little bit of a pay packet, and don't want to do the travelling.

“All of these boys would want to be in the National South and higher, so I was very keen to get them boys. People say we didn't have enough experience, but I've got the experience and I was able to pass bits on.

“We’ve had difficult moments this year with the supporters, but I understood the negativity, I really did.

“Like I keep saying, to be successful, everyone's got to be in it together, and hopefully this will galvanise the whole club and we can grow.”