Truro City’s exciting youngsters took the Premier League by storm in 2038/39, starting the season brilliantly before fading a little to finish in an impressive 9th place. And manager Perran Trevelyan was hoping for further improvement, given he had nine wonderkids at his disposal at the end of the campaign.
There was plenty of good news off the pitch in the summer as Trevelyan’s savvy transfer business saw the bank balance pass £100m for the first time. £87m of that was available for Trevelyan to spend and the wage budget was hiked up to £920k a week, despite only spending £543k.
Back in March, Trevelyan was offered an interview for the vacant Chelsea job – as well as later being offered the England job in the summer – and attended out of intrigue. But, when they approached him, Truro chairman Richard Mukherjee offered to expand Truro City Stadium to tempt him to stay. That should have seen an increase of 5,078 seats, but in May, the board announced revised plans to enlarge the stadium by 8,714 seats, which will take 13 months. As a result, Truro were forced to ground-share 170 miles away at Ashton Gate. The board also agreed to further improve the infrastructure to 20 training facilities and 14 youth facilities while moving up to the top youth category, alongside 20 youth recruitment and 20 junior coaching. They also expanded the staff capacity to a frankly unnecessary 18 coaches, 26 scouts, 6 physios and 3 sports scientists.
The summer began with veteran midfielder Harvey Elliott retiring. Trevelyan didn’t see too much need to strengthen, given they had 18 first-team players with at least 4.5-star potential, and, for the first time in his 16 years at Truro, he didn’t make a single summer signing. Instead, he locked down key players to bigger contracts, including star striker Maurício Genofre bagging the biggest wage in club history on £125k a week to remove his £25m release fee. Trevelyan did, however, give the backroom staff an overhaul, bringing in Jason Wilcox as head of youth development, John Heitinga as assistant manager and, perhaps most intriguingly, Zinedine Zidane as director of football. They joined a staff that included the likes of Koke, Paul Scholes, Anatoliy Tymoschuk, Matt O’Riley and Josh Maja.
Trevelyan stuck with the 3-5-2 that worked well last season, just making one slight tweak to change the holding midfielder from a ball winner to a playmaker. And the first 11 pretty much picks itself with the exception of homegrown Euan Whyte pushing for a starting place in the back three.
Avoiding Second Season Syndrome
The bookies no longer fancied Truro as relegation favourites, predicting them to finish 17th, above the promoted trio of Wolves, Hull and Nottingham Forest, with title odds of 350/1. Man City remain 9/5 favourites ahead of holders Man United (15/8), Tottenham (17/2), Aston Villa (18/1) and Chelsea and Newcastle (20/1). Also, in terms of managers, they are Tyrone Mings (Arsenal), Harry Paton (Villa), Carl Fletcher (Bournemouth), Anthony Barry (Brentford), Francesco Farioli (Brighton), James Collins (Bristol City), Míchel (Chelsea), Leon McSweeney (Palace), Sam Kilman (regen, Hull), Will Still (Leicester), Roberto De Zerbi (Man United), Thiago Motta (Man City), John Terry (Newcastle), Matt Watson (Forest), Gennaro Tutino (Reading), Gregg Ryder (Southampton), José Alberto (Sunderland), Marco Rose (Spurs) and Alex Madeley (regen, Wolves).
Truro’s second season in the Premier League began with their first home game at Ashton Gate against promoted Forest. Striker Bernard Touré ended an 18-hour goal drought before defender Enzo Parra’s header earned a hard-fought 2-1 win in a stadium sellout that set a new club record attendance of 25,068. A tough start saw them lose narrowly 1-0 at Newcastle and 2-1 at home to Man United, who scored twice in three minutes in the second half after striker Abílio’s opener, before a 3-0 defeat at Spurs.
But the season got going with a great performance at home to Bournemouth. Homegrown right back Frederick Adade scored the opener and laid on the second for midfielder Joao Paulo before vice-captain Alejandro Silva rifled in a third. They nicked a point at Wolves before another stellar home performance as Paulo, Whyte and the heroic captain Drew Meyler’s first Premier League goal on his 399th Truro league appearance downed Southampton 3-0. Last season’s top scorer Genofre finally got his first of this in another comfortable 3-0 win at Palace, which allayed any fears they had over a poor start.
Meyler made Truro history as he scored a late equaliser on his 403rd league appearance at Hull, surpassing former captain Sammy Raybould’s record of 402. Exciting midfielder Pedrao scored his first senior goal in a dominant 3-0 win at home to Newcastle and, after Chelsea amusingly sacked Míchel after 236 days and offered Trevelyan the role for the second time in less than a year, he demonstrated why he wouldn’t leave as Parra’s pair of headers led a superb 4-2 away victory.
A tricky December followed, including losing 1-0 at home to Villa and Brentford. But Truro headed into a new decade in a solid 9th place on 32 points, again well clear of any relegation concerns and only 6 points off the Champions League places.
Back On The Cup Charge
Truro disappointed in the cups last season but made up for it in the Carabao, easing past Forest Green and Leyton Orient before Touré and Paulo nicked a 2-1 at home to Man City, who surprisingly lost to Championship side Oxford in last season’s final. But the run ended by losing 1-0 at home to Man United in the quarters. In the FA Cup, an Abílio hat trick eased them past Blackpool before beating Forest 2-0 but lost 2-0 at Villa in the fifth round.
Truro Establish Themselves In A New Decade
The price of overperformance is typically the big clubs begin to circle your best players. And Truro discovered that as European and Saudi sides showed an interest as they moved into the 2040s but, luckily, no bids were actually made. They did sell declining striker Afeez Akinde to Ipswich for £7.25m, and Trevelyan promoted promising homegrown striker Shaun Robinson in his place.
The struggles in December weren’t helped by four players going to the Africa Nations and more injuries, including Atkinson tearing his hamstring, affecting a fairly thin squad. But they began the new decade well, as a Silva penalty, Pedrao and Abílio’s first league goal in months downed Forest 3-1 away and Abílio scored the only goal at home to Wolves before a disappointing 3-0 loss at 6th-place Southampton.
While they were more than capable of beating most sides in the league, Truro couldn’t compete with the bigger clubs and injuries and tiredness caught up with them in February. That said, Trevelyan tweaked his approach and player roles slightly, and Genofre scored as they earned an impressive draw at home to leaders Man City, for which 30,438 people in a newly expanded Ashton Gate set a new record attendance, before nicking a 0-0 at Arsenal. That sparked a solid run, including the impressive Silva creating both goals for Genofre in a 2-0 win over Hull, and Truro found themselves still 9th but 9 points off the European places with eight games remaining.
Another flurry of injuries hit them in the final few weeks of the season. But Silva scored the only goal at home to Chelsea before the Brazilian duo of Genofre and Paulo earned a huge 2-1 win at Villa to lift them above Chelsea into 8th with two games to go. The same duo scored again as Truro beat relegated Leicester, who’d finished 7th last season, 2-0 in their final home game at Ashton Gate to wrap up at least 8th place – meaning yet another record-high finish. And they honoured the superb Meyler, who wanted to leave for a new challenge at the end of his contract, with a thrilling 3-3 draw at Brentford on his record-extending 421st and final appearance for the club.
That saw Truro finish in an impressive 8th place with 58 points, 1 point more than last season, after 16 wins, 10 draws and 12 defreats, scoring 59 and conceding 52 (2 more and 2 fewer than last season). Unlike last season, they didn’t have any players among the top performers, but Paulo was the joint-15th top scorer with 12 goals from midfield and David Navalón kept the 7th most clean sheets with 10. At the top of the table, Man City ended United’s run of three successive titles, while Bournemouth survived with a new low tally of 34 points during this save.
Truro Academy’s First England International
Truro’s overperformance saw Trevelyan pass the board objective to become an established Premier League side three years ahead of schedule. Joao Paulo was the star performer with 14 goals, 10 assists and a 7.16 average rating in 44 games. Genofre dropped off with 13 goals and 8 assists and Abílio chipped in with 10 goals in 42. While Silva impressed with 12 assists and 6 goals and Touré saw a slight improvement with 9 goals and 7 assists in 30 games.
There was a very proud moment this season as Whyte became the first Truro academy graduate to play for England as he started a 3-1 friendly win over Bosnia in March. Paulo made his Brazil debut and Parra and Navalón broke into the Argentina first team. Genofre backed up his NxGn success by becoming the first Truro player to win European Golden Boy. And there was more reason for excitement as Wilcox’s first intake delivered striker Dion Beeney, who scored on his debut on the final day at Brentford, and wingers George Burton and Joe Holden.
Trevelyan was really pleased with the progress his young side was making, especially considering they didn’t make a single signing this season. He was slightly concerned by a lack of goalscoring prowess, but couldn’t be happier with his midfield and defensive options.
Could Truro continue to improve and potentially push for their first taste of European football next season? Or would it be a campaign of consolidation? Join us next Wednesday to find out!
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