Truro City boss John Askey on English football's record-breaking 870-mile away day

Daily Mirror

03-05-2025

After winning a crazy six-way shoot-out for a place in the National League, and delivering professional football to Cornwall for the first time, Truro City face nightmare travel logistics - with their 'local' derby 140 miles away
They will break all records for long-distance awayday travel in English football next season.
But for Truro City, whose promotion to the National League is the greatest moment in Cornwall's football history, the 870-mile round trips to Carlisle and Hartlepool, and a probable 912-mile hike to Gateshead, will be nearer privilege than purgatory.
‌
If they set off for Brunton Park before dawn, they might just about make a 3pm kick-off. But if their coach is stuck behind a caravan on the A30, they will need to hit the road the day before yesterday.
‌
These Tinners are not tinpot - after holding their nerve on the final day of the season, when no fewer than six teams could have won the National League South title, manager John Askey's underdogs won the golden ticket.
And for Askey, a one-club legend who made a record 679 appearances for Macclesfield as a player, the headaches were only starting with the plink-plink-fizz following Truro's giddy celebrations.
Cornwall used to be the distant peninsula where you spent summer holidays scoffing pasties, toppling off surfboards and pretending you were nearly there when you'd made it past Bristol.
Now it's British football's southern outpost, barely a year after they were homeless and groundsharing with Gloucester City a mere 200 miles away - after 60-year-old Askey proved the Tinner takes it all.
'We had no right to go up - in fact we were favourites to go down because of the distances we have to cover and our budget was nowhere near the teams around us in the top six,' he said. 'For a couple of days I enjoyed taking in the view from the top of the league, but now it all starts again. We'll have to get our heads around the logistics and somehow navigate the big trips ahead of us next season.
'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.'
‌
Askey has spent a lifetime in football, including 19 years at Macclesfield - now resurgent under Mirror Sport columnist Robbie Savage - across four divisions and managing six clubs.
But none of his feats has been more rewarding than Truro's defiance of travel exhaustion, poor training facilities and four years of homelessness after plans to share a stadium with Cornish Pirates rugby club collapsed.
‌
He said: '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.'