Truro City 3, Slough Town 3

DESPITE a thrilling 3-3 draw against Slough Town, Truro City couldn’t avoid the inevitable and have been relegated from the National League South, writes Cameron Weldon.

Going into the final day Truro knew they had to win and hope that fellow strugglers Hungerford Town lost at home to already relegated East Thurrock United, and things started well for the White Tigers.

Niall Thompson fired in a long range shot to give City the lead and to boost Truro’s hopes of survival even more East Thurrock had taken the lead against Hungerford.

Dan Roberts nearly equalised for the visitors after going around Alexis Junior, but a brilliant goal line clearance from Nick Grimes kept City’s lead intact.

The dangerous looking visitors couldn’t be kept quiet for long and got their goal in added on time of the first half. Matt Lench was the man on the end of a good move to slot past Junior to break Truro hearts before the break.

Slough looked the sharper in the second period and forced Alexis Junior into a number of good stops.

Truro on the other hand created a number of chances themselves as the game started to open up. Thompson, Jared Lewington and Tyler Harvey all had chances pushed away by a brilliant Jack Turner performance in the Slough goal.

Substitute Noah Keats then had two massive chances to restore Truro’s lead. Firstly, a brilliant Thompson cross that the midfielder got on the end of but couldn’t convert before being played in one on one with Turner, with the keeping coming out on top.

Truro were made to pay for their missed chances just two minutes later when Warren Harris beat the offside trap and coolly slotted home for 1-2.

Two minutes later, Slough had another. Francis Amarty tapped home from close range after some great work from Roberts to set him up, essentially confirming relegation for the White Tigers.

Things then got worse for Truro as it was confirmed Hungerford had in fact equalised, meaning no matter what, their fate was confirmed.

The White Tigers kept battling and refused to go down without a fight. Tyler Harvey converted a penalty to pull one back, before Steven Ziboth poked in an equaliser to claim City a point.

A valiant way for Truro to go out, as relegation to the Southern Premier was confirmed. A challenging season that had about everything has come to an end, although the work doesn’t stop as the busy off season begins.

TRURO CITY: Junior, Palfrey, Riley-Lowe, Grimes, Richards ©, Booth, Regis (Keats 55) , Rooney, Thompson, Harvey, Lewington.

SLOUGH TOWN: Turner, Fraser, Wells, Hollis, S.Togwell ©, L.Togwell, Clifford, Lench, Williams, Amartey, Roberts.