Robert Elstone Joins Truro City as Advisor

Robert Elstone, the former Everton chief executive and Super League executive chairman, has dropped back into football with one of its more remote and intriguing outposts, taking an advisory role at National League South side Truro City.

This is not a headline move to the Premier League boardroom or a television studio. It is a seasoned operator stepping into the long, hard road of non-league recovery. Truro were relegated from the National League last season; the task is blunt and unforgiving: regroup, reset, and climb again.

Elstone will work alongside the club’s leadership, offering strategic advice and support as the Cornish side try to turn relegation into a reset rather than a spiral. His arrival injects heavyweight experience into a club still defining its place in the modern game.

He knows the sharp end of football politics and finance. Elstone joined Everton in 2005 as chief operating officer, then took the top job as chief executive in 2009, overseeing the club through a turbulent, transitional era in the Premier League. In 2018 he crossed codes, becoming executive chairman of Super League, the body running elite rugby league in England, and stayed there until 2021 before moving into advisory work with PwC.

The non-league landscape is not new to him either. He has previously advised Stockport County during their time in the National League, a spell that ended with the club restoring its Football League status. That experience will not be lost on Truro’s hierarchy.

Having met Truro’s senior management, Elstone spoke of being struck by the clarity of their plan and the drive behind both the club and its associated football charity. He described the club’s Cornish identity as “unique” and “compelling” and talked of “huge potential for success”, stressing that he intends to work across all levels of the organisation to help them chase those ambitions.

For a club on England’s far south-western edge, often battling geography as much as opponents, the appointment feels like a statement. Truro have turned to someone who has sat at the top table of English sport to help chart a way back up the pyramid.

Now comes the real test: whether big-league expertise can help a small, determined club turn hard miles and long away trips into a route back to the National League.