Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Reid (GK)		9 apps	-
Craig McKeown		60 apps	12 goals
Johnny Crawford		10 apps	-
Stuart Smith		78 apps	5 goals
Stuart Anderson		63 apps	12 goals
Neil McVitie		61 apps	14 goals
Graeme Rodger		10 apps	4 goals
Paul Lawson		9 apps	4 goals
Scott Barbour		10 apps	4 goals
Cammy Keith		76 apps	57 goals
Garry Wood		10 apps	6 goals
Neil Gauld (sub)		7 apps	2 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Formartine now sit proudly atop the Highland League for the first time in long enough. They got there on the back of a barnstorming performance at Brora where they battled the reigning champions every inch of the way but had just a little bit more in the way of shape, [including crucially the capacity to retain it], managerial nous and finishing flair, to carve out their two goal win. This was the first HFL defeat of Brora at Dudgeon Park in nearly 2 years. That’s the extent of this achievement.

Conditions were autumnally bleak with squally showers scudding through on a bitter coastal wind but a large, occasionally drookit crowd were treated to a game played at a very brisk tempo where few tackles were aimed at the faint of heart and no quarter on any part of Dudgeon Park was given nor asked. For all the fervour with which the game was played, the ref had only twice to show a yellow card. Hard though it was, it generally stayed the right side of dirty. Formartine proved, like Cove before them, that if you are prepared to fight fire with fire, Brora can be beaten. They have their weaknesses and these can be exploited. They do not at this stage look like being the 2016 champions but the season has all the autumn, the whole winter and most of the spring still to run.

Brora went for Formartine straight from the off, opening the game with a minute or two of furious pressure. Working the ball down the left to Brindle they started stacking up players to attack the other side of the box. Brindle did get the ball across to the back post area for it to be hastily bundled away but only as far as Sutherland who with a late run, picked it up about 20 yards out and near the right corner of the box. His ferocious dipping drive brought a superb save from Reid to touch the ball an inch over the top. So close was this that the ref awarded a goal kick rather than a corner and Formartine gained a very brief breather. Formartine were on the rack at this point and Brora did all they could to keep them there. A couple of long diagonal balls out of defence by the superb Lawson found Barbour on the left and although the wide forward could make progress down the flank he struggled to either get past his marker or to find another means of getting the ball into danger area. However he did enough to occupy more than one defender at a time on a regular basis. Whenever he was dispossessed the Brora assault would rapidly resume. A thirty yard free kick from Morrison brought a comfortable 5th minute save from the well -placed Reid.

However, even this early it was clear that a well drilled Formartine midfield and rearguard knew and understood their own and each others’ duties with absolute clarity and for all Brora threw at them they and their system coped well. The side as a whole still needed to settle but settle it did in the eighth minute when its first sustained attack bore fruit. WOOD, whose contribution throughout the whole 90 minutes was superb, rampaged through the inside left channel sweeping imperiously past Gillespie before bursting through between Williamson and the equine Munro. Avoiding the late lingering hoof of the latter, the big striker got one on one with Malin and skelped a thundering shoulder height drive past him from a yard or two in from the left corner of the box.

From that point on, the game swung incrementally Formartine’s way. They quickly settled into a well patterned, crisp pass and move game and were prepared to close down and challenge opponents all over the pitch making it difficult indeed for them to develop let alone sustain a decent rhythm. Formartine also had a bit more width to them and maintaining shape better than Brora, ever so slightly, the upper hand.

Brora didn’t become double champions for nothing and a low fizzing drive not far west of Reid’s left upright by McKay from thirty odd yards out underlined the necessity for constant vigilance. Formartine were able to sustain periods of pressure around the Brora area and forced a few unrewarded corners around the half hour mark, but play was mostly conducted on a box to box basis.

McVitie on the right and Smith on the left were able to alternate occasionally in promoting attacks on the flanks and stretch Brora in ways with which they did not seem comfortable. However by and large the home back four of Williamson, the lanky MacDonald, portly Munro and Houston did enough to protect their bubble at the back and although Brora attempted the expected pre break flurry it came to little and as the first period concluded dare it be said, they looked just a wee bit short on ideas. In fact right at the end, Formartine almost doubled their lead after a marauding run through the middle by McKeown set up Cammy Keith who, after a swift break from left stick to right, just failed to sneak the ball over the line.

Formartine began the second period confidently and although subject to the best Brora had to offer generally looked to be in control of affairs. Still it remained very close. A lightning break from the mercurial Sutherland produced a long range drive that was close to target but not close enough to stretch Reid. Brora went through a phase just after the hour mark where they really stepped up the pace in midfield and leaving no one with any time or space at all were beginning to nullify any or all of Anderson’s and Barbour’s creativity. This still yielded little penetration where it mattered and Formartine’s organisation kept them going. Brora seeing that not even this was really threatening a superbly resolute back four of the tenacious, McVitie, the whole hearted Smith, commanding McKeown and the decidedly dogged Crawford all supplemented by colleagues’ willingness to defend anywhere at all, began to ring the changes. These looked initially unusual and eventually rather desperate. Captain and league top scorer Mackay was replaced by Greig [presumably in the hope that his pace would get him past tiring legs in the visitors’ ranks], but McVitie largely stitched him up. McLean came on for Gillespie shortly later, but the effects of the substitutions were probably negative and that period of midfield dominance began to wane. In contrast Formartine brought on the livewire Gauld for Keith who had done a sterling job of rampaging about drawing defenders hither and yonder and it paid off almost immediately. The hard work was down to the wonders of Woodie. A run started out left near the halfway line took him to the left corner of the box, left to right through it and out the other side where, still with the ball at his feet he was felled by Houston. The free kick about 8 yards in from touch and 5 right of the box was delivered with the precision that only LAWSON can produce, to the exact spot where Gauld knew to go. Darting to this presumably pre-arranged location near, but short of, the back stick the wee striker simply nodded the ball into the net from 5 yards to seal the game in the 77th minute.

Melt- down is too strong to describe the Brora performance thereafter, but manager Brittain responded by removing another high scoring forward, Brindle to bring on himself [normally a defender] and attempt a major re-arrangement. It all seemed rather slapdash and panicky and certainly did nothing beyond making it fairly easy for Formartine to plug away, dictate terms and run out deserved winners.

Of course it is very early in the season and there will be games ahead that are as tough or tougher to face, but if Formartine were to play every game like this, the rest of the season could be very interesting indeed.

Match report by Colin Keenan