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For the players, staff, and travelling supporters of Truro City, the arduous return journey of 914 miles to Gateshead proved bittersweet in the end. The 12-hour bus journey starting in south-west Cornwall travelling the length of England to the north-east yielded one league point plus complimentary drinks.

The team tied their National League match two goals apiece away at Gateshead on Saturday after holding a two-goal lead in the 54th minute, during what is becoming a campaign defined by long travels and unrelenting hauls up and down English A roads and motorways. Following strikes by Dominic Johnson-Fisher and Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gateshead rebounded through Kain Adom and, in the 70th minute, Frank Nouble.

“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.” — John Askey

Already this term the club undertook a journey to Carlisle resulting in a 3-0 loss that clocked up 878 miles. Due to the team's remote location, their shortest away match is against Yeovil Town, around a two-and-a-half-hour schlep via the A30 to Huish Park, a 130-mile trip each direction.

Galvanising Effect from Extended Journeys

On Saturday the first 90 Truro fans to arrive shared a £920 bar tab, courtesy of the EFL sponsor, Sky Bet, with the generous free-drinks fund equating to £1 per mile covered. Fortunately, the squad could interrupt their travel with a pause at Derby's training facility.

Even their Canadian chair, Eric Perez, accustomed to long-haul trips since he regularly flies seven hours from Toronto to London, recognizes the difficulties confronting the club he acquired in 2023 with ambitions of “doing a Wrexham”.

The extensive travel has benefits too for Cornwall’s first professional football club, he believes. “I’m not going to say it’s a short journey, It's an exceptionally long distance relatively,” Perez told BBC Sport. However, it serves to strengthen our squad further – the team bonds during travel, we’re used to travelling together.”

Dedicated Fans Endure Lengthy Travels

One of Truro’s stalwart supporters, John Joyce, accepts the reality of extended travel but remains committed, despite the odd flight cancellation and exhausting rail journeys. He estimates Saturday’s trip cost him around £400 in costs and missed income, remarking, “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, following the Carlisle expedition: “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 so it was easy to get behind the players, but from what I know the fans never even moan and they value the players' efforts.”