Westbury Utd 0-3 Melksham Town – Wiltshire Senior Cup 1st Rnd, Sat. 10th Oct.

Melksham travelled to Westbury United for the first round Wiltshire Senior Cup clash and ran out 3-0 winners in a game that never really reached the heights anticipated from a local derby.

Manager Darren Perrin took the opportunity to rest a couple of players with leading marksman Dan Kovacs and captain Ryan Bennet sitting on the bench and gave a first team starting debut to young Warren Maidment a regular in the Towns Under 18 side.

The first half was a forgettable affair with very little qualify of any note although Town keeper Rob Brown produced a tremendous save to tip over a Scammel header on the half hour mark.

The home side made a difficult task worse for themselves when Ferguson picked up two yellow cards in quick succession for a couple of challenges and was sent off just before the break but the interval saw the sides level at 0-0.

The Town side were subject to a Perrin “pep talk” at half time and began the second period at a much higher tempo than the lacklustre first half, and after only two minutes of the second half a Shaun Benison drive across the 6 yard box was turned in on the line by Gary Higdon to put Melksham 1-0 ahead.

The same combination created the Town’s second goal on 53 minutes when a Benison cross was headed home by Higdon to give Melksham a 2-0 lead.

On the hour mark the Melksham visiting support welcomed Town old boy Dave Macey from the home subs bench and veteran of some 360 appearances for the Town showed some nice touches.

On 65 minutes with the game won Melksham introduced Ian Jeffery from the bench for his first return to action since his foot injury nine games ago.

On 75 minutes Maidment blotted what had been a very promising full debut with a rash challenge and was sent from the field by the referee and both sides were down to 10 men for the remainder of the game.

The homeside pressed without any real end product and the Town pulled further ahead five minutes from time when Will Stead smashed the ball into the roof of the net to make the final score 3-0 to the visitors who now await the draw to find out their opponents in the last 16.

The Town’s Reserves ran out comfortable 5-2 winners over Devizes Town Reserves with two goals each for Emelio Menghini and Callum Demkiv with the other goal from Ben Spong, whilst the A team ran out 7-0 winners against Zeal with a Sean Fordham hat trick, two from James Dark and a goal apiece from Jake Sainsbury and Jordan Evans.

To complete a good week for the Town the Under 18s ran out 3-1 winners against Bemerton Heath in midweek with another two goals from Callum Demkiv and a goal from Zac Hillier.