Melksham Town 1-2 (AET) Hengrove Ath – Les Phillips Cup semi-final, Sat. 7th May

After last  Saturday’s  last ever Western League game at The Conigre Melksham found themselves back at The Conigre for one last time.

A midweek cup victory saw Town entertain First Division side Hengrove in the semi final of the Les Phillips Cup, with high hopes of reaching their first ever league cup final.

However, the home side fell to a disappointing 2-1 defeat with a poor performance and not the ideal way to see out their 96 year tenure at The Conigre.

From the off it appeared that Melksham were not able to inject their usual tempo on the game and a very determined Hengrove side looked very comfortable against their higher league opponents.

On 17 minutes the visitors had the ball in the net when White nipped in to take advantage of some indecision in the home ranks, but the referee rightly disallowed the goal for a handball.

The first half was a forgettable affair with little goalmouth action with Hengrove enjoying the majority of the possession without creating any clear cut opportunities, and Melksham seemingly devoid of any creativity in the opposition half.

Despite this Melksham grabbed the opening goal of the game just on the half-time whistle. Ben Thomson’s driven cross was headed in at the far post by Joe Stradling for his 13th goal of the season for the Town, and Melksham found themselves 1-0 to the good at the break.

However any thoughts that this might jolt the home side into life were short-lived as the second half took a similar thread, although both Ballinger and Bennet came close to doubling Melksham’s lead.

On 55 minutes Batchelor saw his header saved by Brown  from a White cross as Hengrove sought the equaliser their play deserved.

With 20 minutes to play Hengrove brought on Fillingham and his introduction had a major impact of the outcome of this tie. On 73 minutes the substitute curled a low effort past the stationary Brown in the Town goal into the far corner to bring the scores level at 1-1.

Town immediately brought on Young and Benison for Jeffery and Kovacs as they looked to wrestle back the initiative, but were without success and Fillingham blasted over from close range on 88 minutes.

The game went into extra time after finishing all square at 1-1 after 90 minutes. Town brought on Ibrahim for Stradling as the extra time commenced.

The first period of extra time was a cagey affair as the game seemed destined to go to penalties but with 10 minutes remaining, super sub Fillingham had other ideas as he strode through the Town defence to slide home the ball past Brown and put Hengrove 2-1 ahead.

Despite a late Ibrahim cross which clipped the top of the bar there was no way back for Melksham, and Hengrove deservedly won through to the final where they went onto win the trophy with a 2-1 win over Willand.

Curtain down at the Conigre

For the Town this game brought down the curtain on their time at the Conigre as they move to the new ground at Eastern Way in Melksham at the start of next season. The first team ended the season in 5th place with a Wiltshire Senior Cup win under their belt, and will no doubt be looking to improve on that next season.

The Town’s reserves brought down their season with a 4th place finish in the Wiltshire Premier League. The A team finished runners up in Division 2 of the Trowbridge and District League with a knockout cup win, whilst the Under 18s beat Royal Wootton Basset 3-1 in their league play-off to be crowned Wiltshire Youth League champions  to add to their appearance in the final of the Wiltshire Youth Cup.

This combined with a strong and successful youth set up leaves the club well placed to move forward in the new season.