Melksham travelled to league pace setters Street on the back of two successive wins that had pulled the Town away from the bottom of the league but faced a tall task against a team who had won their opening seven league games.
The Town were handicapped by the unavailability of first choice strikers Gary Higdon and Dan Kovacs and manager Darren Perrin brought in Ethan Cox for his first start of the season at centre back and employed Martin Johnson in a lone central striking role.
For the first 15 minutes the Town looked fairly secure with the only scare coming when Dave Macey hacked a corner off the line after 8 minutes.However on 22 minutes the Town failed to clear a corner properly and the home side full back was left all alone to turn and roll his shot into the bottom corner to put Street 1-0 ahead.
On 35 minutes Town keeper Tom Drewitt pushed a snap shot away but the game went further away from the Town on 38 minutes when some indecision in the defence led to Town central defender Matt Cooper being adjudged to have hauled down a Street striker in the box and not only did the referee point to the spot he immediately gave Cooper a red card for presumably being the last man.
The resultant penalty squirmed in past Drewitt to put the home side 2-0 ahead and leaving the Town with a mountain to climb as the half ended with Street 2-0 ahead.
The second half was in truth a fairly tame affair with the home side content with their 2-0 lead and whilst enjoying the majority of the possession they didn’t create any real clear cut openings in the first 30 minutes.All three substitutes Stu Greener , Will Stead and Dan Griffiths were introduced and on 70 minutes Ian Jeffery picked up a caution as Street pushed on.In the last 15 minutes Street started to create chances against a tiring Town side who had worked extremely hard on a surprisingly warm afternoon.
On 81 minutes Town skipper & man of the match Dave Thompson headed off the line and in almost the last attack of the game a long range effort ended up in the back of the Town net to give the home side a comfortable 3-0 victory.
Next up on Saturday a trip to Westbury United in the Wiltshire Senior Cup followed by a home Monday night fixture against Larkhall.
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