Formartine United0–2Forres Mechanics

Formartine have produced much poorer performances than this and still won the game. This was a match that could really have gone either way but as is the way with swings and roundabouts Formartine’s recent run of getting the rub of green came to an end as Forres pinched a pair of goals: the first a tad fortuitous and the second heavily against the run of play at the time. Formartine had at least a fair share of pressure and territory but none of the number of near misses they produced found the net. The effects of this defeat saw them tumbling down the league to fourth place, sandwiched between local rivals; Turriff above and Locos below. Their pursuit of Brora now looks like one where the Brora train is leaving the station while Formartine are desperately chasing along a crowded platform. The task is not yet beyond them but from this point on the extent of their reliance on Brora and others taking points off each other increases markedly.

As is usual these days, they started the game in good spirit and at a very brisk pace. In the first minute Anderson swung the ball centre to left into the path of Napier who was off at speed down the flank before cutting in and releasing a sneaky low angled drive that Knight just managed to poke round the near post. Had that intervention not been successful, Marek Madle getting perilously close from the other side, would have faced an open goal from an on-side position.

Forres, with the advantage of a stiff, swirling breeze at their backs, began testing Formartine mettle. They had a lot of height and muscle to do it with. All 3 of the Frasers fielded are big broad chiels and Scott is right up there in the 6’ plus stakes too. Their height and muscle ran right through the central spine of the side and it was clear that to contain or get the better of them Formartine with the significantly smaller Napier, McVitie and Mackay in midfield, needed to keep the ball on the deck.

The game was played at a furious lick and although it swung from end to end and produced a number of corners (6 to 3) in Formartine’s favour in the first half hour, keepers were not seriously stretched. In the 35th minute a slack, over- casual pass from Anderson directed towards Hay was easily intercepted by Khutsishvili and fed to Lee Fraser who in a trice was one on one with Shearer. His firmly struck shot rebounded from the keeper’s right upright and was hastily smuggled away by the alert McKeown.

This prompted something of gear change from Formartine as they pushed for a lead to take in with them for the interval. A corner on the left was cleared by a Fraser but no further than the crafty Napier who was lurking in the hole just shy of the 18 yard line. He fired the ball low and hard through the mass of bodies in the box only to see it fizz past the wrong side of the left upright with barely an inch to spare.

Home pressure continued and another corner from the same side was nudged to McKeown whose subtle chip from the left landed on the roof of the net just as it looked like drifting in between keeper and crossbar.

The second half opened with Forres getting slightly the better of early exchanges. A tightish off side call in the 46th minute saved Formartine from the consequences of Lee Fraser again getting free in the middle to go one on one with Shearer before a minute later he broke through in the inside right channel to blast a shot into the side netting. Forres at this stage were managing to get the ball over the heads of Formartine midfield and Formartine with wind behind were not yet finding their range. What was probably Forres’s best spell of the game concluded with a goal. This came in the 61st minute when Lee FRASER collected an over the top ball played down the inside right channel. It took out Smith who was still on his way back from supporting a failed home attack and left the nearest defender, McKeown with far too much to do to get in range of the muckle striker. From the right corner of the box he leathered the ball towards the far top corner of the goal. Shearer looked to have it pretty well covered but the ball hung in an eddy of wind then drifted over his head and into the net.

Formartine roared back and from that point on substantially increased their level of possession and forced Forres well onto the back foot. MacKay and Munro gave way to Bagshaw and Duguid and Formartine went for three at the back. Big McKeown moved a bit further forward and got through a pile of work as the platform that supported much of his side’s attacking effort. In the 68th minute Madle set free by his captain broke into the box with only the advancing keeper to beat. He looked to have done everything right as he waited for the keeper to commit before chipping the ball over him. Somehow Knight managed to convert his downward motion into enough of an upward stretch to get a finger tip to the ball which went out for an unrewarded corner. Minutes later a low angled drive by Keith from close in at the left did beat Knight but went wrong side of the far upright by a scant inch or two. A fifteen yarder from McVitie in the inside right position wasn’t much further away either.

With Formartine heavily committed, perhaps over committed if that’s possible in these circumstances so late in game, there was always a chance of a breakaway. Well into stoppage time, Kutsishvili got on the end of a clearance and was off at pace. Formartine could pursue but were unable to get close enough to mount a valid challenge before the speedy midfielder simply squared the ball for Lee FRASER to take the easiest of chances by side footing the ball past Shearer from less than ten yards out.
The Formartine late show did materialise: they simply failed to score during the final fifteen minutes when they had Forres on the rack. The problem with trends like the recent run of last gasp equalisers and winners is that they are rooted more in coincidence than anything else. If you pick the winner in the last race for 6 Saturdays in a row, statistically you are no more or less likely to do it on the 7th than on any other. Sad but true.

Realistically Formartine’s last chance of winning something substantive this season now seems to lie with the Aberdeenshire Shield where they face Cove away next Tuesday.