Match Preview

The Fenmen travel to Leicestershire on Saturday for a UCL Premier North fixture against Melton Town, a club which has made rapid progress in recent years.
Melton’s home ground is Melton Mowbray Sports Village but problems with their artificial pitch mean that the match will be played at Loughborough Dynamo FC. (Watermead Lane, Loughborough, LE11 3TN)
Melton finished fourth last season in their second campaign at Step 5 and they are going well again this season, holding third place with seven wins and 30 goals after 11 matches. They suffered a setback last Saturday, going down 2-1 in a local derby at Ashby Ivanhoe.
The Fenmen enjoyed mixed fortunes in their meetings with Melton last season, losing 4-1 (Chris Assombalonga) at Melton but winning the return 3-2 (Cenk Acar, Sisa Tuntulwana, Rob Conyard pen).

Club History
The club was established in 2004 and joined Division Two of the Leicester and District League. In 2006/07 they were Division Two champions and were promoted to Division One. The Reds then moved up a grade to Division One of the Leicestershire Senior League in 2009. After finishing as runners-up in 2012/13, the club were promoted to the Premier Division.
They went on to finish as runners-up in the Premier Division in 2013/14 and 2014/15 but were denied promotion due to ground grading regulations. A third-place finish in 2015/16 and a move to a new ground saw the club promoted to Division One of the United Counties League.
In 2021 Melton were promoted to the UCL Premier Division North based on their results in the two seasons abandoned because of Covid.
The Reds, who moved to Melton Sports Village in 2016, installed an artificial surface in 2021 but they have encountered problems with the pitch.
Preview courtesy of Adrian Lynn