Gillingham Town 1 v 2 Melksham Town 29/04/14
Once again the Gills fielded a young, developmental team for this game with Josh Mead and Dave Harris keeping their places in the starting line up.
Melksham looked the brighter of the two teams at the start and they took the lead as soon as the 8thminute when a ball lofted into the area was headed home by Nick Ridout, despite being marked by two defenders.
The Gills first chance came just 3 minutes later when Will Agbo put a ball into the area which was headed by Benjani Ben-Salem into the path of Nick Hewlett. Unfortunately Nick couldn’t keep his shot down and his effort sailed over the bar.
On the 12 minute mark Melksham went close to doubling their lead when a shot by Jordan Evans from outside the area had Jamie Beale beaten. The effort first deflected off the inside of the left post and the ball went along the goal line before striking the other post and finally rebounding away from goal. The ball was cleared for a corner and it was from this that Melksham scored their second goal, when a completely unmarked Ryan Bennet headed home from inside the six yard box.
So with less than a quarter of an hour gone the teams were pretty even but the Gills found themselves two goals down due to poor defensive play. Following this the game settled down into a stalemate with neither team creating any clear cut chances in the first half.
At the start of the second half it was the Gills who looked the better team and they nearly scored in the 52ndminute but a Melksham defender cleared the ball off the line. Then in the next minute things went from bad to worse when Dave Harris received a red card. Melksham broke out of defence with Dave Harris and a Melksham striker racing for a 50/50 ball near the half way line. Unfortunately Dave lost the race and resorted to bundling the player over to prevent him racing through on goal and the Referee had no choice other than to send him off as he was the last defender.
As is quite often the case the ten men rallied and the Gills were now in the ascendancy and playing the best football of the game. Despite this it was Melksham who had the next chance when Ben Thomson had a shot from well inside the area blocked by a Gillingham defender.
Just past the hour mark the imoprovement in the Gills’ play resulted in them getting a goal back when Nick Thomson pounced on a loose ball after the Melksham keeper could only parry a shot. Trailing 1-2 now the Gills’ players grew in confidence and at last started to play some decent football. Despite this though some resolute defending by Melksham meant that the Gills couldn’t increase their goal tally and the game ended with Melksham winning 1-2.
Man of the Match was Ryan Murray.
Next up are Sherborne Town at Hardings Lane on Saturday afternoon.
Gills line-up: Beale, Murray, Harris, Agbo, Mead (Sansom 55), Hewlett, N Thomson, Clarke, Smith (Schouten 66), Ben Salem, Rodriguez. Unused sub: J Baker
Terry Lucas
