Stoke City are back in the top flight for the first time since 1985, but there was realism amid the rejoicing as Tony Pulis, the manager, conceded that defying the odds and staying up next season will be a huge challenge.

The good news for Stoke is that the priceless feeling of winning a place among English football’s elite also has a monetary value. Stoke’s reward for sealing second place in the Coca-Cola Championship yesterday is a windfall of about £60 million, regardless of how they perform on the pitch.

Thanks mainly to the Premier League’s lucrative television deals, Stoke and West Bromwich Albion, who also confirmed their promotion yesterday, can expect to bank about £35 million in additional revenue next season. Even if they are relegated straight away, they will receive two annual “parachute payments” of £12 million each.

Pulis accepts that as a club of limited means, Stoke face a tough battle for survival. However, he is confident that he will be allocated a significant transfer kitty. “I’ll take a few days to recover,” he said. “We’ll wait until the dust clears. I know we’ve done absolutely fantastic this year, but nobody has to tell me how different it is in the Premiership. I’m not asking for anything else but the opportunity to put a team in place that will be competitive.

“We know that we have to drastically change the structure of everything at the club if we are going to have any chance of surviving.”

Stoke needed a point to be sure of promotion, which they got in a nervy 0-0 draw at the Britannia Stadium against Leicester City, who were relegated into the third tier for the first time since being elected to the Football League in 1894, when Southampton leapfrogged them with a dramatic 3-2 win over Sheffield United. “I’m delighted for the players,” Nigel Pearson, the Southampton manager, said. “The relief is overwhelming.”

In an afternoon replete with the usual last-day twists and turns, the only team that could have overhauled Stoke, Hull City, were beaten 1-0 by Ipswich Town, who missed out on a top-six place by one point. West Brom defeated Queens Park Rangers to claim the title. Hull are joined in the play-offs by Bristol City, Crystal Palace and Watford.

Leicester follow the likes of Manchester City, Leeds United and Sheffield Wednesday as former Premier League clubs for whom one fall was soon followed by another. They were relegated from the top flight in 2004. Ian Holloway, the manager, was “absolutely devastated” but took full responsibility for the failure. “Leicester will be back. They are too big a club with too much pride not to bounce back. They deserve better,” Holloway said. However, he is expected to be sacked.