By Mark Ashmore
Spireite Mark Ashmore combines his love of football and the West Country to report on one Cornish football team's dream to do what no other team from the county has ever done before: break into the Football League .Truro City, after four successive promotions, not surprisingly have such an ambition and are hoping to eventually rid the county of such an unwanted record.
I've taken in a few Cornish football matches during my time in the South West on holiday, with none more special than Chesterfield's pre-season tour when they played Newquay and Falmouth during the Dave Rushbury managerial era. It came to my notice at a Mullion FC versus Truro City FC game that Truro City had serious ambition, money and an aim to break the ignominy of Cornish South-West football under-achievement and start the long climb towards the promised land of league football.
The game at Mullion finished 6-1 to the visitors and talking to a few local Mullion fans they stated this was a Truro reserve side still representing the local league whilst the first team were now plying there trade in the higher echelons of the non-league pyramid.
The last four seasons have seen four successive promotions through the South Western League, Western League Division One, Western League Premier and finally promotion from the Southern League South & West Division to land in the Southern League Premier division leaving Truro City as the only Cornish side only three promotions from the Football League and the only Cornish side plying their trade in the top ten levels of the English football league set up.
In 2006-07 Truro became the first Cornish side to win a national trophy when they added the FA Vase to their recent success, beating AFC Totton 3-1 in the final, held at the new Wembley Stadium in front of an FA Vase record crowd of 36,232 fans.
In fact promotion this season to the Conference South would set a record of 5 successive promotions by any British football club, apparently not achieved by any other club although I stand to be corrected, over to you Mr Basson !
The problems with this success then become financial. Based in deepest Cornwall, Truro were faced with the longest travelling mileage of any club. The visitors in the game I saw recently were Bedford and they had a difficult journey of 235 miles ! The match programme listed the next two away trips for Truro as Merthyr (216 miles) and Farnborough (230 miles) and there are plenty more arduous journeys than those.
The press box
It could be argued that the visitors were affected by the travelling as they failed to hold an early lead (created by an old friend of ours Junior McDougald) and were 2-1 down at the interval. Truro cantered home in the second period to end with a convincing 5-1 scoreline thanks to Simon Yetton scoring his 200th career goal for Truro to wrap up the victory and start a chant of "feed the Yeti and he will score" from the home faithful. One player that caught my eye, who could maybe step up a league or two was midfielder Marcus Martin who looked a very influential captain.
That record of 5 successive promotions, even taking into account the 5-1 thumping of Bedford, looks out of reach for this season. The result left Truro in 12th place 10 points off the play-off pack and 29 points from the leaders Farnborough. Consolidation wouldn't be a bad thing for Truro and Ex-Yeovil manager Steve Thompson, who also mentions the travelling as an issue in his programme notes. Heaven knows what Thompson would think if Truro do move up another two leagues - the trip to Gateshead is an incredible 455 miles !
The next financial headache which inevitably comes with success is ground improvements and the need for increased income streams, with a population of just 17,431 people, Truro doesn't compare with the population of approximately 100,000 in Chesterfield (including Staveley) and look at our struggle to sustain a football league team on crowds of around 3,500.
Truro potentially have the bonus of acting as Cornish representatives - many consider the area to be a separate nation with its own flag and language. Attracting a good level Cornish support is vital to boost numbers but the Bedford attendance was only 347 and a season average of 504 does not augur well for Football League ambition.
Ground wise, Chairman Kevin Heaney has looked at many options for their upgrade or move from the current base at Treyew Road. Plans to move to a £7 million stadium in Kenwyn were rejected in 2007.
The current ambitious plan is for a £9 million complex based at Polwhele Farm to include three full-sized pitches that can be used for football or rugby, three junior pitches, an indoor training facility and a state-of-the-art clubhouse with one of the pitches built to a standard that would allow the club to play in the Blue Square Premier with floodlights and a 4,000-capacity stadium at the centre.
The surprising aspect to all this is a long-term vision for a second new stadium near Threemilestone with the new complex at Polwhele hosting Truro City's first and reserve teams while development took place.
The club's current home would be redeveloped to house offices and a supermarket.
The worrying aspect to me, as an outsider, is that the club would retain the existing site on a long leasehold basis The money generated from rent would be used to help finance the club whilst temporarily ground-sharing with Falmouth Town Football Club for the 2011/12 season. I personally get nervous when I see plans that involve ground sharing and existing grounds are sold off.
Mr Heaney is the main money man behind this entire venture but in 2008 his property development company Cornish Homes went into liquidation leaving a lot of Truro City supporters, not unreasonably wondering if "Living the Cornish Dream" is likely to come to fruition or is yet another version of football financial mismanagement. Only time will tell !
