The Town entertained Cadbury Heath, looking to get back to winning ways after last week’s loss at Shepton Mallett, and were boosted by the inclusion of new signing Dan King from Bradford Town, who made his debut with Dan Kovacs unavailable.
In the only other change from the previous week’s line up Alex Hillier started at right back with Syeed Ibrahim on the bench.
The Town got off to a fast start and took the lead after only two minutes when the visitors defence were unable to clear a Ben Thomson free kick, and Gary Higdon skilfully dispatched the loose ball into the net from eight yards out.
On six minutes the home side went 2-0 ahead when a superb Thomson cross was volleyed home at the far post by King to get the striker off the mark in his first game.
However the visitors were always a constant threat with their attacking prowess and were unlucky to hit the bar twice within the space of a couple of minutes with efforts from Lee and Tong . On 19 minutes Melksham’s Ryan Bennet picked up a caution for a hefty challenge on Huxley which eventually forced the striker to leave the field at the interval. In an action packed first half a mazy Hillier run saw the ball break to Higdon but his left foot effort was well saved at full stretch by Brown in the Cadbury goal on 22 minutes. However Melksham soon went 3-0 ahead on 23 minutes when a Thomson corner found its way to the feet of centre back Bennet who swivelled and turned the ball into the net .
On 42 minutes Melksham seemingly put the game out of reach of the visitors when a flowing move saw Thomson’s cross turned into the net by Town skipper Mike Perrott from 12 yards with his left foot. The half time interval followed with Town 4-0 to the good. The second half saw the home side make three early substitutions with Monday’s home game in mind, with Bennet, Higdon and Perrott replaced by Ibrahim, Morris and Griffiths.
The visitors enjoyed a majority of the possession and after Melksham’s King saw his header hit the post on 63 minutes, the Heathens deservedly pulled a goal back on 70 minutes when Tong knocked home a Boon cross. On 77 minutes Boon was upended by home keeper Drewitt leaving the ref with no option other than to award the Heathens a penalty. However Drewitt redeemed himself with a smart save from Britton’s kick diving away to his right.
The rest of the game passed without any major incident which saw the Town run out 4-1 winners and up to third place in the league at this early stage of the season.
