The Town made the short trip to Wiltshire neighbours, Pewsey Vale, in the opening round of this season’s FA Vase anticipating a tough encounter, but in truth, ran out very comfortable 4-0 winners with the game out of sight by half-time.
Ryan Bennet returned to the back four after his one match suspension and Lee Fielding started, with Dave Thompson’s injury keeping him on the side lines.
The game was only 3 minutes old when Dan Kovacs found Gary Higdon in the box and the striker poked the ball home from 10 yards to put Melksham 1-0 ahead.
On 14 minutes the Town went 2-0 ahead when Ash Barnett won the ball back high up the pitch and laid a pass off to Kovacs, who danced past a couple of defenders before sliding the ball into the path of Mike Perrott, who scored with ease from 6 yards.
On 15 minutes Melksham withdrew Higdon who was suffering a slight strain and he was replaced by Leigh Rogers.
Melksham continued to cause the home defence all sorts of problems and on 28 minutes went 3-0 ahead when Ben Thomson’s driven inswinging freekick could only be helped into his own net by home defender Ritchie.
Immediately Town manager Darren Perrin withdrew Kovacs and replaced him with Dan Griffiths who formed a strike partnership with Rogers. On 31 minutes Perrott nearly notched his second from a Thomson corner but the ball was scrambled away to safety.
On 36 minutes the Town went 4-0 ahead when Ryan Bennet rose at the far post to head in a Thomson corner and as the visitors threatened to run riot, both Stead and Griffiths has further efforts on goal.
The interval was reached with the Town 4-0 ahead. The second half was a much quieter affair with little action of note and there was no further score in the game.
Perrott, Rogers and Griffiths all had presentable opportunities to score further goals for Melksham, with Town keeper Tom Drewitt untroubled throughout. One bright spot was the return to action for Town’s veteran assistant manager Dave Macey who came on in a cameo 20-minute role for Thomson.This was the first appearance for Macey since his shoulder injury sustained in October 2013.
The Town now face a home tie against Bournemouth Poppies in the next round of the FA Vase on October 4th.
The Town’s Reserve continued their climb up the table with a 2-0 win over Marlbough with a brace from Josh Robinson, whilst the A team continued their impressive start to the season with an 8-1 thrashing of Bratton with 4 goals from Jake Sainsbury, 2 from Callum Demkiv and further goals from Dan Moore and Keiran Mills.
