A CRUSHING penalty shoot-out defeat saw Melksham Town knocked out of the second round of the Les Phillips League Cup by Bristol Manor Farm.

Adam Young was the unfortunate man to miss his spot kick as the Conigre outfit lost 7-6 on penalties in front of their home crowd on Monday.

Melksham had been four minutes away from going through to the next round following Dave Macey’s early first half strike.

But a free kick in the 86th minute free kick beat Gareth Evans and after a goal-less extra time, Young skied his sudden death penalty and Melksham were out.

Melksham player-boss Wayne Thorne said: “I’m obviously gutted after going to extra-time.

“We played very well in the first half and justified the result at half time. I was disappointed with the second half performance but the lads lifted themselves for extra-time.

“Once it goes to penalties it’s just a lottery and because of what things are like at the moment, we’re on the losing side again.

“But the result for me was secondary on Monday. I wanted the lads to prove they wanted to fight themselves out of the rut we’re in, and I’ve seen signs of that happening.”

Tomorrow Melksham will make a third attempt to play Laverstock and Ford in the quarter-final of the Wiltshire Senior Cup.

The previous two matches were postponed, a fortnight ago because the surface at the Recreation Ground was waterlogged, and last Saturday because it was frozen.

Thorne was unhappy about these postponements as he feared it could create a fixture pile-up for his team.

He said: “Last Saturday was a great day for football. They called it off very early.

“At some point the Wilts FA might say we’re going to have to get somewhere else to hold it, and that’s a sensible situation because of the backlog of fixtures.”

Kris Beasley looks set to play a part against Laverstock tomorrow. The midfielder suffered no reaction to his hamstring injury after he was substituted on against Manor Farm. Ricky Trott, who Beasley came on for in Monday’s game, was suffering from a dead leg but should recover in time for tomorrow.

David Thompson looks to have shaken off a hip injury after he played 45 minutes of Monday’s defeat.