Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Shearer (GK)		62 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		38 apps	4 goals
Graham Hay		37 apps	8 goals
Stephen Jeffrey		46 apps	1 goal
Stuart Smith		65 apps	2 goals
Stuart Anderson		50 apps	8 goals
Gary Clark		44 apps	1 goal
Neil McVitie		53 apps	10 goals
Cammy Keith		65 apps	47 goals
Stuart McKay		60 apps	19 goals
Paul Napier		52 apps	4 goals
Callum Bagshaw (sub)		53 apps	8 goals
Marek Madle (sub)		31 apps	16 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

There are a few within the Formartine faithful who will argue that their side’s biggest deficiency is that it contains too many “bottlers”- players who, when the chips are down, lack the confidence to play to the best of their abilities. This display will have done little to disabuse them of that view. Usually when a new manager is introduced to a club, there is an immediate, short term lift in the overall performance as players, eager to impress the new guy in charge, manage to raise their games. For whatever reason, perhaps some were trying just too hard, or others lacked confidence, there was little evidence of this at Banff. The draw, achieved courtesy of a very late penalty equaliser was probably a fair enough reflection on the course of the 90 minutes of a stuttering, patchy and rather muddled looking Formartine performance against a team of hard working, fast moving youngsters many of whom had been pressed into first team action as the result of injuries to players further up the team’s pecking order.

Formartine were set up along familiar lines although there might have been the odd tweak like Anderson being deployed possibly a little deeper than usual. The game began at a brisk pace and for the first few minutes anyway Formartine were looking the part: a free kick, thirty five yards out on the right side was driven into the box by Anderson and Formartine having pushed up Hay and Jeffrey were able to sustain enough pressure around the back stick to force keeper Fyfe into action. There was then a phase of rather scrappy end to end stuff which even this early showed some areas of strength and weakness on either side. Colin Charlesworth playing wide and lanky Liam Forbes more centrally both had the legs to trouble Jeffrey and Hay and they knew it. Twice or more within the next ten minutes one or other of them got in behind the visitors’ back line forcing emergency action. In the 12th minute one such break down the left was contained at the price of a corner on the right and it yielded a goal of almost embarrassing simplicity as the ball was simply driven over, by Sean Keith at about head height to a point a yard or two beyond the back stick, where FORBES, unencumbered by a marker just nipped in, stooped a bit and headed the ball firmly past Shearer’s left hand.

As a wake up call to Formartine, this was partly successful and they began to push into Vale territory and get the better of what were generally rather scrappy midfield exchanges. Clark and McVittie were as usual fairly effective in the ball winning department and broke up play quite industriously, but uncharacteristically, distribution of the balls they won was not of their usual standard and although Formartine were shading it for territory and possession, they lacked the fluency to really dominate. Part of this was down to sheer hard graft on Vale’s part and some down to lack of cohesion between the different departments of the Formartine enterprise. United couldn’t really be faulted for lack of effort, but they were nowhere like as slick as they have been and can be. This was way below the standards shown recently at Clach and Locos. Some of it can be put down to Vale but a lot of it seemed just to be a case of too many players having bad days at the office. Hay slipped and slid, Cammy Keith charged around tilting at windmills but rarely got on the ball. Anderson didn’t pull as many strings as usual. A strange diving back header by Cammy Keith looped over to the back post before being hastily pushed away by Fyfe. Veteran Mackay was in fine form though and was a persistent thorn in the flesh of Vale in different parts of the park and despite their limitations Formartine looked like they were getting on top of things and an equaliser looked on the cards

It came in the 26th minute and although hardly a thing of beauty, it did the trick. A free kick thirty five yards out in the inside right region was driven diagonally into the box by Anderson where it was met not far from the near post by the head of Keith who tried to nudge it past the advancing Fyfe. The keeper got a rather flappy right paw to the ball and it dropped somewhere between right back Rae and the predatory MACKAY. The forward got the better of the tussle and the ball was legitimately in the net from close range. Who actually delivered it there is a moot point but the back on song Kaiser deserves encouragement for the work he has invested to get there.

Formartine generally dominated the rest of the first half with Vale still looking dangerous on the break particularly through the fast direct running of Charlesworth. Dingwall was quietly effective for Formartine and linked well enough with Smith to ensure that at least half of the United back four was reasonably steady.

As Formartine ramped up pressure Hay breaking into the box just after the half hour mark was shoved unceremoniously to the ground. Mr Bean lookalike ref Shaw decreed the offence took place a foot or two outside the box but for this to be correct, then given where the big bobby hit the deck, the guy who shoved him [and there was no dispute about that], must have had a ten foot arm. Penalty denied, Hay skelped the free low, hard and about a foot wide of Rhys’s right upright. The first half limped on to half time with one or two flashes from each side but with more inconsistency than consistency to relieve a pretty patchy encounter.

There were hopes that Formartine would settle after the resumption but it was Vale who were the first to show with a minute or two of concentrated pressure down the left which was ultimately relieved when a Roger shot from about twelve yards range flew inches past Shearer’s left hand. Formartine responded with a bit of a push but lacked the cohesion to capitalise on their pressure.

If Formartine had shaded the first period it was looking as if Vale were doing it in the second. With Formartine continuing in their disjointed scrappy way when virtually every move they attempted self- destructed before reaching fruition, it was the simpler more direct stuff from Vale that looked like paying off. Charlesworth was a torment and on the hour mark after a blistering run down the left by Rae who managed to get past Smith and Hay, he got one on one with Shearer inside the front right side of the box. The keeper panicked a bit (there were defenders behind him and the ball was a bit far in front of the forward) and went down on the forward in front of the ball for a stonewall penalty. RODGER struck this centrally as the keeper dived right.

Vale had the confidence and Formartine anxiety ramped up further. They worked hard but simply failed to function as a unit. Shape was inconsistent, communication apparently poor and for all their huff and puff they struggled to mount much sustained pressure where it mattered. Pacy and energetic Vale coped well by the simple means of running hard and direct at Formartine when they got the ball out of defence. They closed down well in midfield and it looked like they could make off with all three points. The substitution of McKay by Madle and MacVitie by Bagshaw produced mixed results: while Madle’s strong running made a decent impact, Bagshaw never got into the game – to call twice in five minutes for the ball to then let a defender simply step inside him to intercept is not how to impress a new boss.

With time beginning to run out Formartine committed as much forward as they dared and definitely had Vale pinned back. However pinning back and penetrating are not the same and still Fyfe was little exercised. One good diving block from an angled drive from Madle was an exception to this and he again went close from left centre of the area as he drove a low hard drive past the upright and a minute later found the side netting from a tight angle ten yards away on the right.

The equaliser was a stoppage time penalty when Rennie brought down Bagshaw at the left corner of the box for a clear cut spot kick. Cammy Keith buried it low and hard to the keeper’s left. A brief flurry of further Formartine pressure followed but another goal would have been more than they deserved. Kris Hunter saw it all - he has some really good players but can he get them to deliver what and when they need to?

Match report by Colin Keenan