Melksham Town Football Club is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Melksham Melksham () is a town on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England, about northeast of Trowbridge and south of Chippenham. At the 2011 census, the Melksham built-up area had a population of 19,357, making it Wiltshire's fifth-largest settlement af ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Affiliated to the

Wiltshire Football Association The Wiltshire Football Association is the governing body of football in the English county of Wiltshire. Affiliated members pay a fee commensurate with the level of competition they play in, and benefit from access to support and guidance on such ...

, they are currently members of the and play at the Oakfield Stadium.

History

The club was established as Melksham Football Club in 1876.Mike Williams & Tony Williams (2016) ''Non-League Club Directory 2017'', Tony Williams Publications, p571 In 1894 they were founder members of the

Wiltshire League The Wiltshire Football League is a football league in England, formed by amalgamation in 1976. All clubs are affiliated to a County Football Association. The area covered by the competition is the county of Wiltshire and 15 miles beyond the co ...

.Melksham Town
Western League The club were Division One champions in 1903–04 and won the Wiltshire Senior Cup the following season.Senior Challenge Cup Competition Results
Wiltshire FA In 1920 the club was renamed Melksham & Avon United as a result of their new ground being owned by

Avon Rubber Avon Protection plc is a British company that specialises in the engineering and manufacturing of respiratory protection equipment for military, law enforcement and fire personnel. Its corporate headquarters are south of Melksham in Wiltshire ...

, before reverting to their original name in the 1926–27 season. They were runners-up in the league in 1924–25, 1929–30 and 1936–37.Wiltshire League 1901–1955
Non-League Matters In 1951 the club adopted their current name and went on to finish as runners-up in Division One in 1959–60 and 1971–72, also winning the Wiltshire Senior Cup again in 1969–70. Melksham moved up to the Western League in 1974. After finishing third-from bottom of the league in 1975–76, the club were demoted to the new Division One as the league expanded to two divisions. They won the Wiltshire Senior Cup again in 1977–78 and were Division One champions in 1979–80, earning promotion to the Premier Division. Their first season in the Premier Division saw the club win the

Wiltshire Premier Shield The Wiltshire Premier Shield is a single county cup competition involving English football clubs based in the county of Wiltshire. The current competition format operates with a two-leg semi-final and a single match final during the latter stage ...

, a trophy they retained the following season and won again in 1984–85 and 1985–86.Premier Shield Winners from inception
Wiltshire FA However, they were relegated to Division One again at the end of the 1987–88 season. In 1992–93 Melksham finished bottom of Division One and were relegated to the Premier Division of the

Wiltshire Football League The Wiltshire Football League is a football league in England, formed by amalgamation in 1976. All clubs are affiliated to a County Football Association. The area covered by the competition is the county of Wiltshire and 15 miles beyond the co ...

. They won the Premier Division and the Senior Knock-Out Cup the following season, and were promoted back to the Western League at the first attempt. In 1996–97 the club were Division One champions and were promoted to the Premier Division. They won the Wiltshire Premier Shield the following season, and again in 1999–2000, before winning the Wiltshire Senior Cup in 2002–03 and 2007–08. Although the club were relegated to Division One in 2009–10, they were Division One runners-up in

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

, earning promotion back to the Premier Division. Melksham won the Wiltshire Senior Cup in 2012–13 and 2013–14, before winning the Western League Premier Division title in 2014–15. However, delays to making ground improvements meant that they were denied promotion. The following season saw the club win the Senior Cup again. The club were runners-up in the Premier Division in 2017–18, earning promotion to Division One West of the Southern League.

Ground

The club played at Challymead Common until moving to the Old Bear Field in 1883.Brief history of Melksham Town FC at the Conigre
The Melksham Independent News, 11 March 2015 They relocated to the Conigre in 1920; the ground was part of the

Melksham House Melksham House is a Grade II listed house, situated 150 metres west of the Market Place in the town of Melksham, Wiltshire, England. The house was built between the 17th and early 18th century, although records show a building on this site sinc ...

estate, centrally sited in the town, which had been purchased in the same year by

, with the house turned into a social club. A wooden stand was erected on one side of the pitch and wooden fencing installed around the ground. During the 1960s covered stands were built behind the Rugby Club End and on the other side of the pitch, and floodlights were installed in 1986. The wooden stand was demolished in the early 1990s and replaced by a modern metal stand in 1994.Melksham Town
Pyramid Passion Oakfield Stadium

In 2017, in preparation for redevelopment at the Melksham House site, the club moved to Oakfields, a new £7.3 million facility shared with Melksham Rugby Club on the eastern edge of the town. The first match at the new ground was played on 14 January 2017 against Bristol Manor Farm in the

FA Vase The Football Association Challenge Vase, usually referred to as the FA Vase, is an annual football competition for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English National League System (or equivalently, tier 9 or 10 of the overall English footbal ...

, with the visitors winning 5–3 in front of a crowd of 1,215.Perrin eyes top spot after Vase disappointment
The Melksham Independent News, 18 January 2017

Honours

*Western League **Premier Division champions 2014–15 **Division One champions 1979–80, 1996–97 *Wiltshire Football League **Premier Division champions 1993–94 **Senior Knock-Out Cup winners 1993–94 *Wiltshire League **Division One champions 1903–04 *Wiltshire Premier Shield **Winners 1980–81, 1981–82, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1997–98, 1999–2000 *Wiltshire Senior Cup ** Winners 1904–05, 1969–70, 1977–78, 2002–03, 2007–08, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2015–16

Records

*Best

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

performance: Third qualifying round, 1954–55, 1957–58 *Best

FA Trophy The Football Association Challenge Trophy, commonly known as the FA Trophy, is a men's football knockout cup competition run by and named after the English Football Association and competed for primarily by semi-professional teams. The compet ...

performance: Second qualifying round, 1982–83, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1987–88 *Best

performance: Quarter-finals, 2017–18 *Record attendance: 2,821 vs Trowbridge Town, 1957 *Most goals in a season: Gareth Lewis, 72 (1968–69)

References

External links