North Wiltshire Veterans' Division

Nationwide  continue to lead the way in the North Wiltshire Veterans’ Division of the Corsham Print Wiltshire League. They got this week’s action in the division underway on Monday night when they met Stratton at Moredon. When they had met back in October Nationwide had won 4-0 and Monday saw them register a league double over Stratton scoring five unanswered goals to run out 5-0 winners. Both Neil Snow and Adam Devine scored twice with the other Nationwide goal coming through Adam Rudman with his 14^th goal of the season. The win for Nationwide saw them open up a six-point lead over Cricklade Town ahead of their game on Wednesday night away to Royal Wootton Bassett Town.

The following night saw Purton Kingsdown return to winning ways, recording their first win of the new calendar year, securing a 3-1 win over Chiseldon at New College thanks to goals from Joshua Paddon, Kevin Tate and a ninth of the season from James Tinsley, although one of those was scored for Cricklade Town before his transfer. The win for Purton Kingsdown saw them move to within three points of Royal Wootton Bassett Town in fifth spot with two games in hand ahead of Bassett’s tricky encounter with Cricklade Town the following night.

The same night at Moredon FS Stratton continued their recent great form with a third straight win, their latest victims being ExIntel. Goals from David Garraway and Ryan Mason inflicted the damage for FS Stratton who climbed two places in the table as a result of this latest win, including moving ahead of stablemates Stratton.

On Wednesday night Cricklade Town were looking to reduce Nationwide’s lead at the top of the table back to the three points that they had at the start of the week but came up against a stubborn Royal Wootton Bassett Town who frustrated last season’s champions with a dogged defensive performance that completely shut out the visitors as the two sides had to settle for a point apiece after a 0-0 draw. The two points dropped mean Cricklade now trail Nationwide by five points with both teams having seven league games to play.

Joining Cricklade on 32 points from their 15 games are Redhouse who secured a narrow 2-1 win over bottom of the table AFC Swindon, also on Wednesday night. Two goals from leading scorer Dave Pratt put Redhouse 2-0 up, taking Pratt’s total for the season to 13, but Phil Tearle with his fifth goal in all competitions for AFC Swindon pulled one back to cause some nervous moments at the end.  AFC Swindon went close to getting an equaliser right at the end, but Redhouse held on to claim three vital points in their quest for honours.  

Penhill United kept their own challenge for honours on track with a 3-0 win over Swindon Rovers on Thursday night. First half goals from Liam Byfield and Chris Angell put them in command at the break and a third from Peter Myall in the final minute of the game made sure of the three points. That is now 19 in all competitions this season for Myall. Penhill remain just a point behind Cricklade and Redhouse having also played 15 games and with Cricklade to play twice and Nationwide once are going to have a big say in this season’s title race in the closing weeks of the season.

Mid Wiltshire Division

There was a rare occurrence on Monday night in the Mid Wiltshire Veterans’ Division of the Corsham Print Wiltshire Senior League with all four fixtures in the week scheduled to take place that night. In the end just one of the four games was to be played, certainly not a rare occurrence this season, with just the game on 3G at MOD Lyneham beating the weather. Calne Town’s opponents in that game were divisional leaders Devizes Town who extended their lead over Melksham Town at the top of the table to six points with a 5-2 win. There were two goals for both Ryan Banks and Liam Brown with Chris Allen getting goal number 18 of the season to complete the scoring for Devizes. The two Calne Town goals in reply were scored by Gary Newman and Chris Robinson.