Robert Elstone Joins Truro City in Ambitious Football Project

Robert Elstone, the former Everton chief executive and Super League boss, has dropped back into football with one of its more intriguing projects – National League South side Truro City.

Relegated from the National League last season, Truro are a long way from the boardrooms Elstone once occupied at Goodison Park and in rugby league’s top tier. That, in part, is the point. This is a club trying to climb again, and it has turned to a man who has spent almost two decades navigating the sharp end of elite sport.

Elstone will work in an advisory capacity, offering guidance to the club’s leadership as they attempt to reset after the drop. His remit is broad: support the board, sharpen the strategy, help shape both the football operation and the club’s associated charity.

He knows the terrain. Elstone first arrived at Everton in 2005 as chief operating officer, before stepping up to become chief executive in 2009. Those years brought stadium debates, commercial restructuring and the constant battle to keep pace with the Premier League’s financial arms race.

In 2018 he crossed codes, taking on the role of executive chairman at Super League, England’s rugby league governing body. He stayed there until 2021, then moved into advisory work with PwC, adding a corporate edge to his sporting experience.

Lower down the pyramid, he has already shown he can help a club find its way back. Stockport County leaned on his expertise during their spell in the National League, a period that ended with promotion back to the English Football League.

Now comes Truro, a very different challenge in a very different corner of the country.

“Having met the club's senior management, I could not help but be impressed with the clarity of vision and determination for both the club and football charity to succeed,” Elstone told the club’s website. He called the Cornish side “unique” and “compelling”, stressing the “huge potential for success” he believes lies within the project.

He has worked at the highest level in English football. He has overseen a major rugby league competition. Yet he is stepping into a club whose battles are about travel costs, community roots and the grind of National League South.

For Truro, still smarting from relegation but talking openly about ambition, that blend of big-stage experience and lower-league know-how is precisely the attraction. Elstone says he wants to work “at all levels of the club” to help them reach their targets.

The question now is simple: how far can this Cornish club go with a Premier League-seasoned operator in their corner?