Melksham Town 2-2 Bishop Sutton – Toolstation Premier Division, Sat. 1st March

Melksham entertained bottom club Bishop Sutton in good spirits after the previous week’s resounding win at Bridport.

Town were without leading marksman Gary Higdon through work commitments. This, coupled with Wiltshire county Youth commitments, meant Stu Greener returned to the starting line up and another youngster from the club’s Under 18s, Harry Waylen, was called up to the squad.

In a mediocre first period both teams struggled to cope with a less than ideal playing surface and it was the visitors who struck first on 30 minutes when their winger went on a mazy run past a few static Town defenders to rifle home his shot at the near post. Just before the break a clever pass by Benison found Dan Kovacs but the inform striker just failed to control the ball and the chance passed and the visitors held onto a 1-0 break, with high hopes of gaining their first win in a long run of 17 games without victory. The Town upped the tempo after the break, no doubt with their ears ringing from manager Darren Perrin’s half-time talk.

The game changed dramatically on the hour mark when Kovacs was brought crashing to the ground by Loader the visiting central defender when clear though on goal after latching on to Stead’s flighted ball, and the referee was left with no option than to dismiss the defender and award a penalty to Melksham. Kovacs slid home the penalty to continue the striker’s fine run of form which has seen him hit 6 goals in 6 games in 2014 and with 15 goals this season is well on target to beat a seasons best of 19 in a season at the Town.

Not unsurprisingly, the Town laid siege to the visitors’ goal with a plethora of chances being created. On 70 minutes Town introduced 17-year-old Harry Waylen for his debut and also brought on Dave Macey in a bid to force a winner and in the last throw of the dice Leigh Rogers was thrown on with 10 minutes remaining.

Veteran Macey saw his 25-yard effort well saved but amazingly with a quick breakaway Bishop Sutton took the lead in the last minute when Mortimore scored after some tenacious set up play by Moss and it looked like the visitors were set for that elusive win.

However with the game drifting into injury time, youngster Waylen picked up a Ryan Bennet flick to calmly drift inside his marker and hit a sublime left footed shot into the top corner to bring the scores level at 2-2 and give the Town a deserved equaliser.