Cornish Crusade | Part 7 | Loanees Flourish In Tight League One Battle

The pride of Cornwall was stronger than ever as the county folk took to the streets to celebrate Truro City’s promotion to England’s tier three. But Perran Trevelyan faced a tough task to revamp a squad for the big step up to League One.

Truro’s investment in youth had seen youth recruitment rise to 15 and junior coaching at 20, with training and youth facilities both at 8, which was causing a little too much financial output for this level. But tycoon investor Richard Mukherjee injected an additional £1.1m into the club coffers at the start of the season, taking them to £1.3m in the bank, a transfer budget of £942k and a weekly wage budget of £48k.

The summer saw a mass of first-team regulars leave, including star man James McAtee, who refused to sign a new deal, goalshy and injury-prone striker Daniel Oyetunde and midfielders George Hoddle, Max Lott, Owen Lunt and Zach Baumann. Trevelyan’s first addition was an experienced head in former Ipswich attacker Conor Chaplin. More experience arrived in midfielders Ben Pearson, who may be a walking red card, and Joe Rothwell, alongside Bradford left back Jacob Slater and Wolves right back David Kelsey. He also turned to the loan market to bring in promising 6ft 6in striker Martin Luczak from Liverpool, midfielder Oliver Wilkinson from Barnsley and, on deadline day, Spurs striker Jordan Curtis.

Trevelyan stuck with the 4-1-3-2 approach with a few subtle tweaks to make the side more solid. They now have an entirely new midfield quartet and strikeforce, with Slater coming in at left back. But 21-year-old captain Sammy Raybould, who made his debut in the first season after coming through the youth academy, is the only player to have played for Truro at all four tiers and remains the starting right back.

A Massive Step Up To League One

League One represented a massive step up in quality with the likes of Divin Mubama at Portsmouth and Rodrigo Muniz at Watford. However, the bookies were backing Truro to finish 20th at 50/1 for the title with the relegation favourites being Southend, Fylde and Chesterfield. Oxford are 2/5 favourites along with QPR and Watford (15/8), relegated Portsmouth (17/2) and Barnsley and Bolton (12/1).

Truro began life in League One with a tough test at home to Portsmouth but played well and had more shots but lost 1-0, in which they set a new club record attendance of 5,096. They also outshot Petebrorough away but lost 2-0. That put the pressure on a home game against Lincoln and Trevelyan’s more cautious approach worked nicely as they defended well and Chaplin’s penalty secured their first goal and win in tier three. Luczak’s first goal earned a point at MK Dons before a really unlucky 3-2 defeat at early leaders Watford, who nicked a 96th-minute winner, and Luczak’s late goal secured a 1-1 at home to Barnsley.

They finally got firing as Luczak scored two either side of centre back Chukwuebuka Wakili powering home a header to down relegated Rotherham 3-0. Rothwell scored his first goal in another 3-0 win at Burton and, after Truro’s first-ever international break, Wilkinson’s pinpoint throughball put Luczak in for the only goal at home to Wigan. The defensive strength continued to shine with a 0-0 at Newport before Luczak scored twice either side of halftime after laying on Jaden Williams’ first of the season to defeat Charlton 3-0 away. But it suddenly capitulated in a 3-0 defeat at home to Crawley.

A strong start had seen Truro firmly in mid-table having yet to play any of the fellow predicted strugglers. But Wakili’s header earned a 2-1 win over Fylde that catapulted them up to 8th after 14 games before a disappointing 3-1 defeat at Chesterfield and a 1-1 at high-flying Southend. The bookies’ idiocy was proven by the pre-season favourites Oxford, who were 20th, being dismissed 4-1 away led by Curtis’ brace. That began a busy December in which Wilkinson’s first goal edged a 1-0 at Carlisle, Chaplin came off the bench to nick a 2-1 win at home to Blackpool and striker Charlie Barton’s first senior goal secured another draw with Southend. That sent Truro into a new decade sitting in a solid 9th place.

Finally A Lucrative Cup Clash

Truro’s recent cup success didn’t translate into the Carabao Cup as they lost 4-2 at Charlton in the first round, in which Pearson predictably got sent off. Luczak struck late to edge a 1-0 win over Wigan in the FA Cup first round and Chaplin’s penalty secured the same result against Peterborough. Every big Premier League side got drawn away and Truro got Eddie Howe’s Everton at home. Trvelyan rested the first team for a New Year’s Day league game, when Everton got thumped 4-0 at Newcastle. And a solid defensive effort got probably the ideal result as they held them to a 0-0, in which Truro got their first-ever 5,750 sellout and set a new gate receipts record of £130k. The run unspririsngly ended there with a 4-0 loss, but finally getting a big away day in front of 50,800 people bagged Truro £900k in gate receipts.

Truro Enter Tasty Playoff Race

Truro began the 2030s ten points clear of the relegation zone, but endured a sticky patch through January and February in which the only solace was Curtis’ brace leading a 4-1 win at home to massively underperforming QPR. The striker then scored the only goal at Rotherham and got the second as Luczak ended an 11-hour goal drought and Chaplin’s late header secured a 3-1 win at home to 22nd-place Charlton. That lifted Truro into the edges of a very tight playoff race that saw 2nd to 16th separated by just 12 points with 12 games remaining.

Those were very much outside hopes for Truro, but Luczak scored twice at 20th-place Wycombe to firmly end any concerns of relegation with nine games spare. And anything beyond that was a bonus. They dominated 23rd-place MK Dons to remain just 2 points off the playoffs going into the final five games, which still saw Blackpool in 3rd only 6 points clear of Carlisle in 14th!

The run-in began with a 4-0 defeat at promoted Lincoln before Curtis came off the bench to nick a late winner at QPR. They dropped down the table with a 2-0 defeat at home to 3rd-place Oxford but surged back up it with a 2-0 win at Salford on the penultimate day. That more or less ended any playoff hopes with Truro 3 points back from 6th going into the final day but with a far worse goal difference. Truro held up their end with a 4-2 win against Carlisle, which saw them jump up to an impressive 8th place.

They only finished on 68 points, only one point outside the playoff places after 19 wins, 11 draws and 16 defeats, scoring 69 and conceding 64. Chaplin was the joint-top assister in the league with 12 and, oddly, made the most tackles per 90 minutes of 4.2. Luczak and Curtis were the 8th and 9th top scorers with 16 and 15 and topped the MOTM awards with 9 and 7. Watford dominated the league and 6th-place Wigan snuck promotion through the playoffs.

Impressive Third Tier Consolidation

Truro continued to surprise everyone as they survived with ease in League One and even came close to nicking into the playoff places. Loanees Luczak and Curtis were crucial signings, leading the way with 18 and 15 goals respectively. Chaplin also impressed with 12 goals and a club-high 12 assists, Wakili scored 7 from centre back and Wilkinson chipped in with 6 goals and 7 assists.

There would be plenty more change this summer with several players out of contract and several more refusing to commit. While having three loaness as your best players is always a long-term concern. One thing Trevelyan was keen to do was to blood more academy talents, having so far only established Raybould and defender Drew Meyler in the first team. Midfielder George Bartley racked up a few appearances at the end of the season and Trevelyan was hoping more would follow. And there was potential for more to come with a youth intake led by 5-star potential wingers Jack Hall and Gary Docherty, 4.5-star striker Jonty Moyse and seven more players with 3.5-star or better.