Truro City boss John Askey on 800+ mile away days and club’s potential for 2025/26 season

Truro City boss John Askey spoke on the 800+ mile away days they face and the club’s potential for the 2025/26 season.

The Tinners’ promotion to the National League marks a historic moment for Cornwall, bringing professional football to the region for the first time.

However, manager John Askey has highlighted the significant logistical challenges posed by the club’s geographical isolation.

The team faces trips to northern clubs like Carlisle (870 miles), Hartlepool, and potentially Gateshead (912 miles).

And to just point out how closer their nearest “local” derby will be, it’s currently Yeovil, which is a 280-mile round trip, underscoring Truro’s remote location.

To try and avoid nightmare traffic on routes like the A30, they club are looking at flying for certain matches.

Despite the challenges, he views these trips as a “privilege” and part of the adventure of competing at this level, reflecting the team’s resilience after overcoming travel exhaustion and limited resources in the past.

Askey also expressed optimism for Truro City’s potential in the 2025/26 National League season is grounded in the club’s remarkable 2024/25 campaign, where they defied expectations to win the National League South title.

Truro City give heartfelt reaction on making history with promotion to the National League

John Askey said, per the Mirror: “We will have to go full-time as a club – you can’t expect lads to take time off work in their day jobs for trips to Gateshead or Carlisle – but I want to retain as many of these players as possible and keep that spirit going. I’m not saying some of the trips are far away, but I’ll need to get my passport renewed and apply for visas.

“We are closer to France than any away game in the National League. Our ‘local’ derby next season will be Yeovil, which is a 280-mile round trip. People don’t realise how far west Truro is – I fell asleep for two hours on the road trip to one away game and when I woke up, we were only at Exeter.

“Cornwall has never had a full-time professional football club before, and for some games we are going to look into flying. It’s a nice problem to have, and at times it’s going to be a logistical nightmare, but we are ready for the adventure.”

He reflects: “We won four promotions at Macclesfield and they were crazy times. I played until I was 38, when a broken leg put an end to my career, and one year we played Manchester City as equal partners in the third tier. They were great days, but for all the trials and tribulations as a player, and leading Macclesfield back into the Football League as manager seven years ago, this is probably my best achievement in the game.

“Sometimes, as you get older, people question whether your enthusiasm for the game ebbs away – but for me, the fire has never gone out. If anything, it burns brighter than ever now. Coming down to Truro was one of those decisions that could have turned out badly for me. I had never managed a club south of Shrewsbury before and, if it hadn’t gone well, I might have disappeared off the radar, never to be heard of again.

“But now we’ve taken football in Cornwall where it’s never been before. Whatever you say about rugby, and this county is a real rugby hotbed, there are more people who are passionate about football down here.

“They have been crying out for a team to get behind and this is a massively untapped market. As well as fans rallying to the club, there must be some real talent that never gets picked up – you can’t tell me that people who live beyond the border with Devon can’t play football.”

While Truro City boss John Askey speaks on the on 800+ mile away days and club’s potential for the 2025/26 season, @Alfie755603 wrote a Twitter thread “Truro City: The best story in the 24/25 campaign. A thread on the best football story to come out of Cornwall.”

Since the mid 1900s, Truro’s stadium had always been Treyew Road, however in 2014 something massive happened.

In 2014, Truro City sold the stadium, and were given four years to relocate. So in the first half of the 2018/19 National League South season, they ground shared with Torquay United until they managed to get a deal to play at Treyew Road until 2021.

The last game at the stadium was at the ground was on 27 October 2020, a 4–1 victory against Wimborne Town.

In January 2021, it was announced that Truro City would groundshare with Plymouth Parkway at Bolitho Park until 2022 when the planned Stadium for Cornwall was scheduled to be finished.

However, the Stadium for Cornwall plan stalling, and eventually, in 2022 being dropped by the Cornwall Council.

In March 2023, following the scrapping of the Stadium for Cornwall, Truro City confirmed the extension of their ground share deal at Plymouth Parkway for the 2023–24 season.

As said previously, for the 2023/24 season, Truro would groundshare with Plymouth Parkway.

This would be the truth until February, where the deal would be cut short due to regular postponements at Bolitho Park.

Where would they go after this? Taunton Town and Wordsworth Drive.

At this point, Taunton were also facing regular postponements. The situation was so bad that Truro only played two games at Taunton’s stadium.

Who against, you are asking? Taunton Town, where they managed to win 2-0 vs the away side…or home side and the other was Chelmsford where they lost 4-1.

This also affected Taunton as well as they only managed to play on other team, that being Chippenham.

So, eventually, on the 22nd March 2024, due to pitch issues at Wordsworth Drive, Truro announced the club would play the remainder of the 2023–24 season at Gloucester City’s Meadow Park.

Truro City would be playing their home games nearly 3 hours and 30 minutes away from Truro itself, there were genuinely clubs who were the “away” side that were closer to Gloucester than the home side themselves.

It gets even crazier, 10 of the last 12 games were all played at “home” which included a 8 game run of playing in Gloucester.

It gets even more crazy, in the space of 14 days (2 weeks) they played 8 games at home, which included 2 games in two days.

All this while they were in the midst of a relegation battle.

And they survived, picking up these results in the 10 games at Gloucester:

26th March- 🟨 0-0 (Dartford)
29th March- 🟩 3-2 (Slough)
————–
4th April- 🟥 0-2 (Hemel Hempstead)
6th April- 🟨 1-1 (Aveley)
8th April- 🟥 1-2 (Torquay)
10th April- 🟨 0-0 (Eastbourne)
11th April- 🟥 0-2 (Yeovil)
13th April- 🟩 3-1 (Maidstone)
16th April- 🟩 1-0 (Dover)
18th April- 🟨 0-0 (Weymouth)

After the Weymouth game, no more games at Gloucester.

For the first time since 2020, Truro City would play in Truro.

Weirdly, no pre-season game was played at Truro’s new ground, so the first game at the Truro Sports Hub was Dorking on the first matchday of the National League South season.

This game is quite infamous due to Dorking wearing their kit inside out due to a kit clash. The game ended 2-1 to Dorking Wanderers.

The rest of August was pretty good for Truro, winning every game except for the Salisbury game on the 20th.

Okay, good start for Truro, but surely they’ll slow down later on. I mean, there’s a 0.0000001% chance of Truro getting playoffs, let alone win the league…right?

And slow down they did, only picking up 1 win in the whole of September and that would be at Parkside vs Aveley (granted there was only 4 games and 1 of them was in the FA Cup).

Okay, decent start for Truro, 16 points on the board already. Surely they will start to slow down even more.

But did they slow down?

October started off with a bang with 2 wins, a 1-0 win versus Hemel Hempstead and a 3-0 victory vs Hampton & Richmond.

The other 2 games were also pretty decent, a draw at Farnborough and a 2-1 win against Tonbridge.

Okay, what is going on here? 26 points already for Truro, Surely this isn’t sustainable for another 33 or so games. I mean they haven’t been in the NLS playoffs since 2018 and they’ve never won the league, no Cornish team has EVER won the NLS or played in the Conference.

November was a decent month for Truro, 2 1 all draws against Slough and Chippenham respectively. Then a 2-1 win at Welling, then 2 1-0 losses. First at Boreham Wood, then at Plainmoor in the FA Trophy. Then a 2-1 win versus Chesham then 4-1 hammering victory at Weymouth then a 0-0 draw at Dorking.

Something is going on down in south in Truro, and it looks very promising.

December was mixed, 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss.

Maidstone (h) was a 2-0 loss, despite Truro beating them at the Gallagher in the reverse leg. Then a 2-1 win at St Albans, followed by a Boxing Day draw at Weston Super Mare.

To start the New Year, Truro were on 39 points…and it stayed like that after a classic Jordan Young goal stole all points on New Year’s Day. However, on the Saturday, they managed to make it to 42 after a 2-1 win against Hornchurch.

For the rest of January, no losses and only wins. Except for Eastbourne (a) which ended 0-0. Aveley at the Truro Sports Hub ended in a 2-1 win and Hemel Hempstead away ended in a 3-0 win.

They made it to 50 points when Bath came into town on the 1st of February.

The rest of Feb went like this:

8th Feb- 🟩 3-1 (Hampton & Richmond)
11th Feb- 🟨 1-1 (Farnborough)
15th Feb- 🟩 1-0 (Tonbridge)
22nd Feb- 🟩 2-0 (Slough)
25th Feb- 🟨 1-1 (Weymouth)

By the end of Feb, Truro were on 61 points

March was the best month of the season for Truro if we are basing it off of points gained.

On the 1st, (3 months in a row we’ve had games on the 1st) Truro went to Chesham and slapped them up 4-1.

Then, on the Tuesday, a promotion 6 pointer was up. Boreham Wood at Truro. The home side managed to grab all 3 points due to a Jephcott and Kabia goal in the 2nd half.

Then Welling, who were swept aside by Tyler Harvey and Connor Riley-Lowe. Then, a comfortable 3-0 at Chippenham gave the all 3 points on the road.

Then, Enfield away. 2 late late goals sent Truro home with nothing. Then they managed to win against Salisbury by one due to Tyler Harvey. Then a bore draw at Chelmsford ended Truro’s month.

One month remaining and it contains some of the most toughest teams in the league. 77 points.

5 games remain and all of the following teams could win the league:
-Truro
-Torquay
-Eastbourne
-Worthing
-Boreham Wood
-Dorking
-Maidstone

First game of April would be away at Worthing. Dean would score within 4 minutes before Cashman would equalise from the spot. Jephcott would score the winner with just over 20 minutes left on the clock.
A win against Worthing.

A Kabia hat-trick would give Truro all 3 points at Hornchurch, then the big boys were coming to town. Torquay were coming to win the league at Truro.

For as much as Truro tried, Torquay would have the better Good Friday due to a Matt Jay goal in the 65th minute. Would the title charge end here? All this to come second? (they were still top)

Weston away would not be a breeze in the park, they have great players like Sam Pearson. A Tyler Harvey brace, which included a penalty in added time, would net Truro a crucial win in north Somerset.

The title race would go down to the final every team mentioned before except for Maidstone had a chance of winning the title.

Before the game, Truro were top by 3 goal difference. A win might not secure them the title if Torquay win by enough.

However, by the 10th minute, the title looked like it would go to Cornwall as Truro managed to take 3-0 lead in 10 minutes.

If the score were to stay the same, Torquay would have to win by 6 or more to win the league. However, disaster struck for Truro. St Albans grabbed a goal in the 28th minute to make 3-1.

It didn’t really matter though as on the half a hour mark, Truro would grab a 4th through Riley-Lowe.

Nothing else happened regarding the scoreline until the 79th minute when Shaun Jeffers grabbed a 2nd for St Albans. Would a miracle comeback happen for St. Albans…hell no. As 4 minutes later Andrew Neal gave Truro their 5th of the afternoon.

Truro had gotten promoted to the National League for the first time in their history and the first time a Cornish team has ever done that.

From playing home games from a stadium that’s over 3 hours away to lifting the NLS title, Truro had done the impossible. They made the impossible, possible.

This is a weird one, who would ever think the team playing home games in a stadium that isn’t even in their league would lift the league title a year later.

I find it a bit odd as they picked up 14 points against the other playoff teams, I mean they didn’t even score against Torquay, only recording 1 point against Eastbourne and Dorking each.

As a Yeovil fan myself, I cannot wait for the National League next season. If Torquay don’t get promoted through playoffs, we would be their closest team even though we are 2hrs and 30 minutes away.

What a story and what a team.