Riley-Lowe Leads Truro City into FA Cup Challenge at Merthyr
Connor Riley-Lowe has been around Truro City long enough to know what the FA Cup can do for a club. He has also seen how unforgiving the draw can be.
As captain, he leads Truro into a second qualifying round tie away at Merthyr Town, carrying both the scars and the memories of recent years in the competition. At this level, the margins are thin. The history is even thinner.
When Truro have played in the sixth tier or below, they have made it past this stage only once since that landmark run to the first round in 2017. For a club with ambitions, that record bites.
Last season underlined the frustration. Then in the National League, City pushed all the way to the fourth qualifying round, only to fall on penalties to AFC Totton. So close to the bright lights again, only to be dragged back into the shadows from 12 yards.
Riley-Lowe does not hide behind excuses, but he knows the pattern.
“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,” he told BBC Radio Cornwall before the trip to their Welsh opponents. Away ties, higher-ranked opponents, long journeys – the kind of details that turn cup dreams into slog.
“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. Even this draw is a real tough draw to get Merthyr away – they're a really strong team.”
There is no bitterness in his voice, just a clear-eyed realism about the lottery of the competition. The captain knows what every non-league side quietly wishes for 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.”
Instead, Truro head over the border to face a Merthyr side with pedigree and momentum. It is the hard road again. It usually is.
Memories of Charlton and a club that grew up
Riley-Lowe is one of the few survivors from the team that wrote Truro into FA Cup folklore seven years ago. That 2017 run changed how people looked at the club – and how the players looked at themselves.
Back then, Truro beat Hampton and Richmond 2-0, with Noah Keats scoring twice, to become the first Cornish club in 48 years to reach the first round. Almost half a century of waiting, broken in one cold, decisive afternoon.
The reward was huge: an away tie at then-League One side Charlton Athletic in November 2017. A proper stadium. A proper stage. A proper test.
Current Truro striker Tyler Harvey found the net in a 3-1 defeat at The Valley, a scoreline that never quite told the full story for those who were there. For Riley-Lowe, that day still glows.
“Other than the two promotion days, I think that was my next best day in football,” he said.
Back then, Truro were still something of an unknown. “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 travelled in numbers. The players felt it. The club felt it. A Cornish side on a big London stage, refusing to shrink.
“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.”
The result went as the form book suggested. The performance did not. That matters in the FA Cup, where reputation is often built on the days you lose well as much as the days you win big.
Chasing that feeling again
Riley-Lowe would love another day like Charlton. He does not hide it.
“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?”
That is the paradox for clubs like Truro. To reach the glamour, you often have to fight through the grind: tricky away pitches, strong sides from the same level, long trips on coaches that feel even longer on the way home if things go wrong.
Yet there is no sense of resignation from the captain. He has seen this group come through big games before.
“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?”
That last line hangs in the air. The FA Cup makes heroes.
For Truro City, it once turned a small Cornish club into national news for a few weeks and gave players like Riley-Lowe a lifetime memory at The Valley. Now, as they prepare for another awkward away day at Merthyr, the question is simple.
Who wants to be the next one to write their name into that story?
