Truro City Football Club

@TCFC_Official Americans. Bloody Americans. Say what you like about them, they know a good investment when they see one. In 2021, when Gamechanger20 Ltd bought Ipswich Town, they spotted a sleeping giant in East Anglia—a club with a dream catchment area. Norwich’s 12-toed newts are an hour’s drive away through Europe’s worst roads, and there’s little south until West Ham. It was a smart move, and under McKenna, inspired.

But where else in England offers such untapped potential? Go West.

Truro City Football Club is a prime opportunity—the nearest big team is 90 minutes away, leaving a huge region craving a team to rally behind. Enter Eric Perez, a Canadian businessman with a flair for bold projects. He founded Toronto Wolfpack Rugby League, entering them into the English league (?), and when the pandemic scuttled that, he relocated Hemel Hempstead RL to Cornwall—a daring move far from Rugby League’s northern heartlands.

In November 2023, Perez bought Truro FC, calling it a brilliant business opportunity with its large catchment and minimal competition. Yet his plans remain unclear; a proposed joint stadium with his rugby team fell through when he sold it. For now, Truro FC is thriving—promoted to the National League South in 2023 and currently topping the table. The Cornish boys are on the rise.

Their badge features the Cornish flag at the base and Truro Cathedral’s magnificent silhouette. That flag—white cross on black—represents St Piran, patron saint of tin miners, a nod to Cornwall’s tin-mining legacy, once vital to the Byzantine Empire. The imagery of molten tin and Christ’s light may sound like GCSE student desperate to find meaning where there is none, but if I were Cornish, I’d have the flag, the phone case, the tattoo.

Cornwall and Devon were home to the Dumnonia, a Celtic tribe whose hillforts outlasted most of Britain’s. They resisted the Romans and held off the Saxons longer than most, though Wessex eventually claimed most of the region there was still a separate ‘King of Cornwall’ called Alef when the Normans showed up in Hastings. Cornish culture and language therefore remained distinct, closer to Welsh and Breton than English, and they still have that funny accent of theirs today.

Truro Cathedral, built in 1880 after Queen Victoria granted the city status in 1877, stands on the site of St Mary’s the Virgin. With its three spires, it’s one of only three cathedrals in the UK to boast such a feature. Truro also thrived as a port city, exporting tin across Europe and even to the Byzantine Empire.

Today, the city draws visitors to attractions like the Royal Cornwall Museum and its annual City of Lights Festival, where illuminated sculptures of dragons and mythical creatures parade down the streets, flanked by thousands of lantern-carrying locals.

There’s plenty happening in the South-West, but to truly experience it, you’ll need to make the journey - or - wait a bit, and I bet Truro City FC will be gracing your team’s pitch before you know it.

St Piran and his merry band of tin miners are on the march.