MATCH PREVIEW: Truro City vs Chippenham Town | National League South | Tuesday 5th November 2024

Declan Wright previews our trip to Cornwall

The longest away day of the season waits for Chippenham when they travel to Cornwall to play Truro City. The game will be played on Tuesday 5th November 2024 at a 7:45pm kick-off at the newly opened Truro City Stadium.

On Saturday, The Bluebirds travelled to the capital to play away against Welling United and what a start Chippenham had with Harry Parsons picking up the ball and breaking the Wings offside trap with a pass to Leone Gravata who puts in the back of net on the 8th minute. Chippenham was then in dreamland when Alex Bray, Luke Spokes and Tom Owen-Evans show quality and TOE then being through squares the ball to Harry Parsons and hits it into bottom corner from inside the box, putting Chippenham 2 up in just 10 minutes.

The Bluebirds travelling fans really got their money’s worth when on the 13th minute. Leone Gravata with space down the wing drives and crosses the ball to Tom Owen-Evans who brought it down and went around the goalkeeper and poked it into the goal and put Chippenham 3-0 up. Welling did get a chance with a freekick in a dangerous place with Martell Taylor-Crossdale who hit it well, but Will Henry saves it well and keeps it 3-0 at half time. The second half was not as interesting when it comes to the number of goals, but Chippenham was still showing the quality needed to keep a clean sheet and not give The Wings any momentum.

This was shown when on 77th minute, when Matt McClure drives and cuts back to Tom Owen-Evans and hits it in for his second of the game. A good 3 points and clean sheet on the road for Bluebirds.

Tuesday night’s opposition is Truro City FC who are nicknamed The Tinners. They play their football at the Truro Sports Hub, which has a capacity of 3000. The ground was opened this year after playing their home football at grounds outside Truro since 2020 mainly ground sharing with Plymouth Parkway and Gloucester City.

Truro currently sits in 2nd place (at the time of writing) and will come in this game on form not losing in 6 where-as Chippenham sit 15th and want to build their way up the table. The Tinners are currently managed by John Askey who joined Truro in June 2024. Askey who during his playing career became Macclesfield’s record appearance holder making over 500 appearances for the club. During his managerial career, he managed the club, where he spent most of his playing career with Macclesfield, where he had 2 stints where he won the National League and earned a job at Shrewsbury.

After Shrewsbury he managed clubs like Port Vale, York (promoted from National League North) and Hartlepool and then joined his current club at the start of this season.

Truro has two players that Bluebirds fans may remember from their stints at the club, with the first being Ryan Law. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chippenham fans were allowed back into the ground when they played the A4 derby against Bath City and the left back for that day was Ryan Law.

He joined the Bluebirds on a month’s loan from Plymouth Argyle but only got to play twice with Welling away, the only other appearance he made. Another player who joined on a month’s loan that season and is currently at Truro City is centre back Tom Harrison, who joined Chippenham on a month’s loan from Bristol City and went on to make to make 5 appearances including the fans returning game against Bath City when he played 90 minutes.

The player we think Bluebirds fans should look out for is obvious this week with the National League South top goalscorer Tyler Harvey being the one that is chosen. The Truro number 9 has excelled so far scoring 11 goals in 14 appearances and has been a key part of Truro success so far. Coming through Plymouth Argyle Academy, he made his professional debut at 17 and after a loan deal with Salisbury, he scored in the Devon derby against Exeter City.

Another loan deal with Bath City this time at the back-end of 2015/16 season then led to him joining Wrexham on a permanent basis in 2016/17, and re-joined Bath for his second loan back in January 2017. Harvey went back to Wrexham where he was released and joined his current club for his first stint. For a little he joined Bath again for a 3rd stint but then again re-joined Truro where he has been since. In total for Truro, he is made over 190 appearances and scored 110 goals so the Chippenham defence will know they will need to keep him quiet to get another clean sheet.

So, the scene is set and the almost 400 miles round trip for the Bluebirds on a Tuesday night, will be a very tough game and will need the support of the Chippenham fans so if you can do the long travel with the players and management, please be loud and proud and they would appreciate the support.

If you’re not able to be with us then listen in to Jamie Oleszynski’s live Radio Match Commentary on Mixlr here.

UP THE BLUEBIRDS!