Match Preview

Preview courtesy of Adrian Lynn

The Fenmen will be seeking revenge when they entertain promotion chasing Melton Town at Fountain Fresh Park on Saturday.
Melton came from behind when the teams met in Leicestershire in October, securing a 2-1 victory in the 83rd minute of a hard-fought match. Toby Allen had given the visitors a first-half lead.
They are fourth in the UCL Premier Division North and favourites to gain one of the play-off positions, having games in hand on their main rivals. They have won 16 of their 26 league matches but had a poor run at the start of the year, picking up just one point from their first five games of 2024.
But they returned to winning ways with a 6-0 thrashing at AFC Mansfield, leading scorer Tyreace Palmer netting five of them and taking his tally to 22 for the season. On Wednesday they confirmed their return to form with a 4-0 success at home to Deeping Rangers.
One of their key men is midfielder and assistant manager Paul Anderson, who made more than 100 Football League appearances for Nottingham Forest and has had two spells at Swansea City and also played for Bristol City, Ipswich Town, Plymouth Argyle and Northampton Town. After leaving Northampton he signed for Melton, his home town club. He forms a midfield partnership with player-manager Tom Manship.

Club History
The club was established in 2004 and joined Division Two of the Leicester and District League. In the 2006/07 season they were champions and were promoted to Division One. In 2009 they moved to Division One of the Leicestershire Senior League and after finishing runners-up in 2012/13 they 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 unable to take promotion due to failing 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 (Step 6).
Progress was maintained In 2021 when Melton were promoted to the UCL Premier Division North based on their results in the two previous seasons which were both abandoned because of Covid.