CHIPPENHAM Town manager Mark Collier was pleased to cap off a busy opening week of the new campaign with a convincing 3-1 win over Cambridge City.

The visitors took the lead 15 minutes into the encounter when Andy Sandell found Dave Pratt who returned the ball for his strike partner to side-foot home with his weaker right foot.

Chippenham doubled their lead eight minutes after the break when Kent Kauppinen launched a long free-kick from out wide and the home defence failed to deal with it and Alex Ferguson found himself in the clear and able to roll the ball into the empty net.

Ferguson recorded a brace as he headed home at a 56th minute corner which was hacked away by a home defender but an assistant was well-positioned to signal that the ball had crossed the line.

Cambridge netted a late consolation goal but it wasn’t enough to ruin the long journey back home to Wiltshire for Collier.

“It is a difficult place to go,” he said.

“The pitch is not great by anybody’s standards, so getting the ball in and trying to play was not possible so it was a case of playing percentage football.

“We had to play a lot further forward than we would normally want to play but we got the result.

“We were three up with a quarter of the game left and they got a late goal when we were down to 10 men with Greg Tindle off getting stitches.

“Overall, we looked strong going forward and I am particularly pleased with the result.”

Five minutes into the encounter, Tunde Adewunmi caught Tindle in the face and was fortunate to only receive a yellow card.

Tindle was off the field for four minutes having attention to his nose and also having to change his shirt.

He carried on until 20 minutes from time when he was replaced by Mark Preece and Collier knows that keeping key members of the team fit will be crucial to this campaign.

“It is still early days,” he added.

“I have been speaking to the chairman and vice chairman and said we will need to reassess it at Christmas.

“We have some difficult games coming up but there are teams at the bottom and teams at the top and I think we are fourth or fifth.

“We have had a comfortable start and I know we have good players but we need to keep certain players fit and if we can do that then hopefully we can kick on.

“Our start has been commendable. The players have taken on board everything we have asked and there is a good spirit in the camp.”