For the players, staff and travelling supporters of Truro City in Cornwall, southwest England, the grueling 920-mile (1471km) round trip to Gateshead in northeast England was a mixed blessing in the end.
The 12-hour bus journey from Cornwall all the way up England’s spine to the south bank of the River Tyne bore a single point and a free pint or two.
Truro drew their English National League match at 2-2 at Gateshead International Stadium on Saturday, having led 2-0 in the 54th minute, in what is turning out to be a season of epic train journeys and unrelenting hauls up and down English A roads and highways.
Photo: REUTERS
After goals from Dominic Johnson-Fisher and Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gateshead rebounded through Kain Adom and, in the 70th minute, Frank Nouble.
Already this term, Truro have made a trek to Carlisle in the northwest for a 3-0 defeat that clocked up 1413km. Such is the club’s relative isolation that even their nearest away game is at Yeovil Town, about a two-and-a-half-hour schlep along the A30 to Huish Park, 209km each way.
On Saturday, the first 90 Truro fans to arrive shared a ￡920 (US$1,224) bar tab, courtesy of the English Football League sponsor, Sky Bet, with the free-drinks fund representing ￡1 for every mile travelled.
At least the players were able to break up their journey with a stop at Derby County’s training ground.
Truro coach John Askey told the BBC: “Clubs that come down to us, most of them are flying down and staying over on the Friday, so for us to have to do it on the coach is not ideal, but because we have so many long journeys, that’s the way we have to do it. We just have to get on with it, but with it being such a long journey, the longest it’s ever been in English football, it draws attention to it.”
Even their club chairman, Canadian Eric Perez, who appreciates long-distance travel since he regularly flies seven hours long-haul from Toronto to London, understands the challenge facing the club he took over in 2023 with ambitions of “doing a Wrexham.”
All this time on the road has benefits, too, for Cornwall’s first professional soccer club, he believes.
“I’m not going to say it’s a short journey. It’s a ridiculously long journey in context,” Perez told BBC Sport, “but what that does is galvanize our side even further — everybody spends time together, we’re used to travelling together.”
One of Truro’s stalwart supporters is resigned to long days of travelling but remains committed, despite the odd flight cancellation and wearisome train treks.
John Joyce, who estimates Saturday’s trip cost him about ￡400 in expenses and lost earnings, told TalkSport: “I worked for NATO in the last six years of my career in the navy, and it was a shorter drive from Brussels back to Cornwall than it is from Cornwall to Gateshead.”
As Askey said after their Carlisle odyssey: “The thing that makes Truro special as a club is that the supporters get behind the team no matter what. I know last season we were very successful [earning promotion from National League South], so it was easy to get behind the players, but from what I know, the fans never even moan and they appreciate what the players have done.”
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