Connor Riley-Lowe has lived enough of Truro City’s FA Cup story to know how rarely the draw smiles on them. As the captain looks ahead to a second qualifying round trip to Merthyr Town, he is hoping this season finally bends in their favour.
History says it rarely does.
When Truro have been at step six or below, they have made it beyond this stage only once since that landmark run to the first round in 2017. Last season, while in the National League, they fell agonisingly short again, losing on penalties to AFC Totton in the fourth qualifying round.
The scars of those exits are fresh, but so is the sense that Truro keep being handed the hard road.
“If you look back at our past four or five years, I don't think we've had easy draws, I don't think they've been in our favour at all,” Riley-Lowe told BBC Radio Cornwall before the tie against their Welsh opponents. A glance at the fixture list backs him up: long trips, higher-ranked opposition, and very few soft landings.
“I think we've had a lot of away draws and also we've had opposition that you could say are higher in the pyramid,” he said. This one, he feels, fits the pattern. “Even this draw is a real tough draw to get Merthyr away – they're a really strong team.”
He is not dressing it up. Merthyr away is exactly the sort of assignment most non-league managers quietly hope to avoid when the balls come out of the pot.
“No disrespect to any other teams in the competition, but there were a lot of teams that were a few leagues below and naturally you want one of them because you think that you've got the best opportunity.”
Riley-Lowe knows what the right draw can unlock. He is one of the few survivors from Truro’s unforgettable surge to the first round proper in 2017, when the club stepped into the national spotlight.
That run began to feel special the night they beat Hampton & Richmond 2-0, Noah Keats scoring twice to make history. Truro became the first Cornish club in 48 years to reach the first round of the FA Cup. For a team often tucked away from the wider football conversation, it was a breakthrough.
The reward was a trip to The Valley to face then-League One side Charlton Athletic. A proper stadium. A proper league club. A proper occasion.
Tyler Harvey, now back leading the line for Truro, scored in a 3-1 defeat, but the result never told the full story of the day. For Riley-Lowe, it still sits on the top shelf of his career.
“Other than the two promotion days, I think that was my next best day in football,” he said. Back then, Truro were smaller, less known, still fighting for recognition. “I think we've got a bit more stature in the game now, but back then Truro was a real small club and not many people had heard of Truro.
“For us to go up to Charlton back then was really big for us and it was a great day.”
They did not just turn up for the photo album. They travelled with a strong following from Cornwall and gave Charlton a genuine contest.
“We took a lot of fans and we actually did ourselves justice on the day – we were a little bit unlucky, I know Charlton made quite a few changes, but on another day we could quite easily have nicked something from that game.”
That sense of belonging on a bigger stage has never really left him. It fuels the hope that this year’s campaign can open another door.
“It was a great day and I would absolutely love to replicate it, but again you need the draw to go well for you, don't you?”
The draw has not exactly rolled out a red carpet. To get anywhere near another League One ground, Truro must first survive places like Merthyr, the kind of tie where cup dreams often quietly die. Yet Riley-Lowe is not in the mood to concede anything.
“We've done it before where we've had a couple of tough games and we've made it so there's no reason why we can't produce that this year, so we'll see – but it was a great day and the FA Cup makes heroes, doesn't it?”
He has seen that truth up close. Now, away in South Wales, Truro go hunting for the next chapter.
