This time last year Truro City were simply trying to limp through the season, in the middle of a ludicrous grind of 10 National League South games in 20 days. This exact week 12 months ago brought four matches, a period that could have been a Craig David 7 Days remix: Torquay United on Monday, Eastbourne Borough on Wednesday, Yeovil Town on Thursday and Maidstone United on Saturday. Sunday offered a little respite before the final stretch, three matches across four days. Just completing the campaign was an achievement.
But, arguably, that was not even the biggest challenge. Truro spent the final two months playing home games at Gloucester City, a 390-mile round trip and the final bizarre but memorable chapter in a nomadic existence that spanned four years. Until that point they had been groundsharing with Taunton Town, 120 miles away, and before that across the Devon border at Plymouth Parkway, 55 miles away, but a cocktail of inclement weather and pitch problems left them searching for another home. The league pushed them towards Gloucester’s synthetic surface to fulfil their fixtures. “I think we would have played on a local patch of grass on a roundabout if they would have allowed us,” says Gareth Davies, the club’s head of media and communications and a local BBC commentator.
At the beginning of this season Truro finally returned home to a 3,000-seat stadium. They vacated their previous ground, Treyew Road, where they last played in October 2020, when it was sold to developers, a Lidl supermarket later built on the site. Now all the miles spent on the M5, the hours lost funnelling back and forth fromCornwall, are beginning to feel worthwhile. Truro, who finished last season 16th, were among the favourites for relegation. They operate with a hybrid squad of part-time and full-time players and a bottom-half budget of about £500,000, about 30% of some rivals. But, with four games to play, John Askey’s side are the shock leaders in a congested division where six points separate the top six. If they get over the line, they will become the first Cornish club to play in the fifth tier.
Saturday brings a visit to Hornchurch. Every away game except for Bath, Chippenham, Torquay, Salisbury, Weston and Weymouth is an overnight stay. Last season “home” games in Gloucestershire, often in front of double-digit crowds, proved draining. “Sometimes I would work 7.30am-4.30pm, drive three hours, get there at 7.30pm and kick off at 7.45pm, so I was getting a 15-minute warmup and then starting,” says Connor Riley-Lowe. “And I wasn’t the only one. We’d get home at 2am … so it was a dark couple of months. Staying up made it all worth it and this season has been the icing on the cake, probably our reward for last season.”
Truro’s location provides a hurdle to recruitment. Riley-Lowe, who came through the ranks at Exeter and is best friends with Ollie Watkins, the Aston Villa and England striker, is a PE teacher. Tyler Harvey, Truro’s star striker, and his father run a business importing champagne. Billy Palfrey, from Looe, makes fishing nets for a living. Dan Rooney, who was raised in Torpoint, works for Babcock in Plymouth docks. The defender Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain, brother of Alex, is on loan from Kidderminster Harriers.
“To play for Truro you have to have a certain mindset and mentality because you spend so much time travelling,” Stewart Yetton, Askey’s assistant, says. “But it is what makes us a unique and special place and I think you have to be a unique and special sort of person to be able to cope with that.”
Yetton is Truro’s record goalscorer and his association with the club dates back to 2005. “When we had to vacate, I think a lot of people thought we may never get back and it could be the death knell for the club,” he says. “I was always hopeful we would return but there were plenty of times where it felt touch and go. To get back to Truro and to a brand new stadium, that first game back against Dorking … I found that quite emotional.”
Truro had groundshared with Torquay in 2018-19, giving staff, supporters and players a 200-mile round trip. Riley-Lowe, the captain, who first joined Truro as a teenager and is in his fourth spell and ninth season with the club, recalls an FA Trophy third qualifying round victory there against Greenwich Borough. “I think we had 23 paying fans watching us at Torquay,” Riley-Lowe says. “This club has been through some tough times over the past few years. Coming back to Truro, now we’re averaging almost 2,000 fans a game, the buzz around the club has been incredible.” Since he joined Truro other things have improved, too, such as nutrition. “Proper food on the bus, not just lads eating rubbish, getting takeaways on the way to a game on a Friday night,” he says.
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On Good Friday they host Torquay and their former manager Paul Wotton, who guided Truro to promotion in 2023, a 95th-minute Riley-Lowe winner at Bracknell securing their place in the sixth tier. The raw numbers provide a barometer of how far they have come. “On Good Friday last year we played Slough Town at Gloucester for a home game, there were 116 fans there and we played at 5pm because Gloucester City played on the pitch at 1pm,” says Davies. “This year we sold out our [Good Friday] game 24 days before it.”
Watkins attended Truro’s game against Torquay in Gloucester last season and Riley-Lowe, who attended three of England’s games at Euro 2024, including the final, will be at Villa Park cheering on his friend when Paris Saint-Germain visit in the Champions League on Tuesday. “He’s done all right … I still beat him at two-touch in the garden but he’s a bit quicker than me, maybe that’s why he’s playing in the Premier League and I’m not,” the 29-year-old says, laughing.
Truro’s title tilt has put Cornwall, one of the few counties without a professional club, on the football map. If they can achieve the unthinkable and secure promotion, they could face what is surely a welcome problem: an 868-mile round trip to Carlisle, who are bottom of the Football League and look likely to be relegated. “It would be a challenge because at the moment we travel at tea-time after everyone finishes at work and get to most hotels at 11pm at night,” Yetton says. “I don’t think we could travel at 5pm on a Friday to get to Carlisle. We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”