Yeovil Town’s pre-season friendly schedule gets underway with a trip to Melksham Town on Tuesday night, 7.45pm kick-off.
The trip to Wiltshire will be the first opportunity for Glovers’ fans to get eyes on new signings strikers Aaron Jarvis and Harvey Greenslade, midfielder Brett McGavin and on-loan keeper Ollie Wright (among others!) in green-and-white.
We have played Melksham before, most recently in pre-season 2019, straight after the relegation from the Football League, when an XI made up mostly of trialists were thrashed 6-0 – so presumably not very good trialists.
If you are making the trip to the Oakfield Stadium, here’s a few details you might need to know…..
Who are they?
Melksham Town play in the Southern League Division One South and in the 2023/24 season finished it fourth from bottom of the league, that’s three divisions below the National League Premier.
This will be their second game of pre-season having hosted League One Bristol Rovers on Friday night, going down to a 4-2 defeat. The Gas fielded an XI featuring a number of youngsters and went 2-0 up early in the second half before pegged back to 2-2 by Melksham around the hour mark. Rovers’ new signing, defender Dan Ellison who joined from Chippenham Town in the summer, enjoyed his return to Wiltshire scoring twice in that game.
Melksham are managed by Mark Collier who joined in November 2022 having had experience in Wiltshire football with Chippenham and Swindon Supermarine.
Ticket information
Tickets are available on Eventbrite – click here to buy – and there is a booking fee attached which explains the weird prices. Adult: £11.55, OAPs: £9.38, 14-16 years: £5.04, 6-13 years: £2.88.
How to get there
The Oakfield Stadium has been Melksham’s home since 2017 when they moved to a purpose-built stadium which they share with the local rugby club which plays on a pitch adjacent to the football pitch. As such stadiums often are, Melksham is a cashless stadium and operates CARD ONLY – only make sure you take your cards with you.
Address: The Oakfield Stadium, Eastern Way, Melksham, Wiltshire, SN12 7GU.
Parking: There is free parking at the stadium.
Picture courtesy of Tim Lancaster.
Directions:
Road: If the traffic is kind to you, the journey from Yeovil to Melksham should be around 1 hour and 15 minutes by road.
The quickest route is to take the A303 west and then on to the A350 just before you get to Chicklade. From there you stay on the A350 past Warminster and through Westbury, until you reach the edge of Melksham when you take the exit and join Western Way.
Follow Western Way until the Spa roundabout on to Spa Road, at the next roundabout it is the second exit on to Snowberry Lane, and then on to Eastern Way at the roundabout after that. You will skirt around some out-of-town housing estates and then take a right-hand turn towards the Oakfield Stadium – hopefully it’s signposted!
Rail: There is a train station in Melksham, but it’s a fair way from the Oakfield Stadium, so you are probably better off driving or getting a lift. It is about a one-hour walk from the train station, there is a bus (272 towards Devizes) which gets you some of the way there but you will still be doing plenty of walking. If you are ‘committed’ enough to try it for a friendly, you can get South West Trains from Yeovil Pen Mill to Westbury and then the Great Western Railway to Melksham, it’s the train that goes to Swindon that you need. But, if you want to catch a train back, there’s every chance you’ll have a seven-and-a-half hour wait Westbury……..so, yeah, probably don’t take the train!