Cricklade Town continued their excellent record against Malmesbury Victoria Development with a hard-fought win on Wednesday night at the Flying Monk. With the pitch at Malmesbury under water the previous week, after the nearby river flooded the ground, all credit to the groundsman at the Malmesbury club for repairing the pitch in such a short space of time to enable the game to go ahead. Cricklade had completed a league double over Malmesbury in each of the previous three seasons and started as pre-match favourites but given the heavy conditions, and with the home side fielding a strong side, it always looked like it was going to require a massive effort to come away with all three points. The sides turned around at the break with the game yet to see a goal as both sides found the conditions hard going. The deadlock was finally broken after the interval when Malmesbury’s Gareth Jones headed in from close range for his sixth goal of the season to make it 1-0 to the home side. It looked like it would get even tougher for visitors Cricklade, with that recent perfect record in serious danger, when they had a man sent off. However, as often can be the case, the ten-man side rallied and got themselves back on level terms with a fourteenth of the season from leading scorer Jonathan Peachey-Score with a strike from twenty-five yards out. With their tails up the ten men then created another excellent goal, Chris Tewkesbury scoring after some good build up play to put Cricklade in front for the first time in the game. Malmesbury pushed for an equaliser but were unable to take advantage of the extra player and Cricklade held out to take all three points to move to within three points of Royal Wootton Bassett Town Development in seventh spot. With eight of their remaining eleven fixtures at home, Cricklade will be hoping that this home advantage can see them climb into the top five by the season end.