SWINDON Town Ladies capitalised on Forest Green Rovers’ draw with Shanklin to cut the gap on the Women’s Premier League South West Division One leaders to two points yesterday.

With table-toppers Forest Green being held to a 1-1 draw by their Isle of Wight opponents, second-placed Town took full advantage with a 4-1 win at mid-table Cheltenham Town.

Meg Vella put Swindon ahead in her first appearance of the season before Lisa Coe doubled the visitors’ lead.

Beth Thompson pounced to make it 3-0 and after Cheltenham hit back, Ellie Maynard fired home from the penalty spot after Thompson was brought down in the area.

Swindon’s Alice Smith was sent off late on for her part in an off-the-ball incident and ladies programme leader and football in the community coach Shane Hewlett, who took charge of the side in the absence of manager Steve Robertson, thinks that Town ‘won ugly’ to keep their promotion challenge on track.

“Forest Green dropped points so it was important that we got a result, which we managed to do,” said Hewlett.

“At the moment, we just want to win as many games as we can because that’s all that matters. If we can do that and then take a look at the table in February or March, hopefully we’ll be in a position to have a shot at going up to the Premier Division.

“Sometimes you’re going to have to win ugly like that. We scored four goals but we know that there’s a lot that we need to work on and Steve, who had a day off, and the rest of the coaches will be working on things in training.

“We had a good management team there, which included Laura Morgan. She’s basically our club captain but she’s injured at the moment and hopefully we’ll be able to get her back in the next few weeks.”