Wiltshire FA Veterans County Cup

Last week the spotlight in the two veterans’ divisions of the Corsham Print Wiltshire Senior League was on the Second Round of the Wiltshire FA Veterans County Cup, with seven of the eight Second Round ties scheduled to take place. The cup action commenced on Tuesday evening with three scheduled ties, although in the end only two went ahead with Durrington conceding their tie away at Purton Kingsdown, the only cross-divisional fixture of the round.

The two ties that went ahead on Tuesday included the all-Mid Wiltshire division tie between leaders Melksham Town and Barford Hornets. Having defeated the Hornets 7-0 when they met in the league last month, the game very much went to form with Melksham Town securing a comfortable 5-0 victory to progress to the quarter-final stage of the competition. Gary Higdon was once again amongst the goals, scoring twice with further goals coming through Kai Miller, Luke Turvey and Joe Fowler.  

The other game played on Tuesday night was an all-North Wiltshire Division tie between ExIntel and Stratton. This was a much closer affair decided by a solitary goal from ExIntel’s Marc Sheppard which was enough to see ExIntel progress to the last eight.  

There was again just the one of two scheduled ties played on the Wednesday night with Westbury United’s withdrawal from the league seeing Warminster Town awarded their tie by the Wiltshire FA.

The game that did take place was another all-North Wiltshire Division affair at Moredon with Penhill United  and Chiseldon sharing four goals, with penalties needed to decide matters. Adam O’Keeffe and Edward Erekosima were on target for Chiseldon in normal time with Pete Myall getting both of the goals for Penhill United to take his tally for the season to seven. In the penalty shootout it was Penhill who held their nerve to win 3-1 and progress to the quarter final stage.

The following night Redhouse and FS Stratton were involved in the third all-North Wiltshire Division tie of the week and the current leaders of the division, Redhouse, had a much more comfortable passage through to the next round scoring seven times in a 7-2 win. Nolan Paul led the way scoring a hat-trick, Michael Jones bagged a brace and there were further goals for Chris Howe and Mark Glover.

The final tie of the week was on Friday night at Green Lane with the ‘Devizes derby’ between Devizes Town and Bishops Cannings. Devizes currently lead the Mid Wiltshire Division whilst Bishops Cannings are at the other end of the table, and the game very much went to form with Devizes running out 9-1 winners. There was a hat-trick for Chris Allen with Josh Brigham, Ryan Banks, Rob Mitchell, Jonathan Scott and Daniel Sloan all getting their name on the scoresheet, the final goal coming courtesy of an own goal.

Mid Wiltshire Division

As a result of the cup action there was just one league game played across the two divisions and that was in the Mid Wiltshire Division and it saw Trowbridge Town Tigers pick up their second win of the season, Marc Sheppard scoring the only goal of the game against Calne Town which saw them open up a five point gap over Barford Hornets. Alwyn Bodman was at the game with his camera and more of his photos from the game can be found on the League Facebook Group Page.