Keith 1 - 3 Formartine United

Scottish Cup - 1st Round
Saturday, September 13th, 2014, 3:00 PM at Kynoch Park, Keith
Attendance: 140
Referee: Martin Kerrigan
Keith v Formartine United, Sep 13th 2014, Kynoch Park, Keith
Keith Formartine United 

Goalscorers
Robbie Collinson (54) Paul Napier (22)
Sam French (45)
Sam French (62)

Team Managers
Graham McBeath Steve Paterson

Starting Eleven
David Dey
Stewart Hutcheon
Greg Smith
Bruce Milne
Scott Whelan
Fraser Strachan
Craig Cormack
Robbie Collinson
Michael Ewen
Stuart Massie
Matthew McDonald
Andy Shearer
Craig McKeown
Graham Hay
Stuart Smith
Stuart Anderson
Callum Bagshaw
Hamish Munro
Gary Clark
Cammy Keith
Paul Napier
Sam French

Bench
James Flaherty
Greg McInnes
Richard Henderson
Kyle Cooper
Daniel Bell
Steven Doak
Calum Dingwall
Craig Duguid
Neil McVitie
Marek Madle
Stuart McKay

Substitutions
Richard Henderson for Craig Cormack (70)
James Flaherty for Greg Smith (73)
Greg McInnes for Scott Whelan (87)
Craig Duguid for Gary Clark (57)
Marek Madle for Cammy Keith (65)
Stuart McKay for Paul Napier (74)

Bookings
None. None.

Red Cards
None. None.

Appearances & Goals To Date
Andy Shearer (GK) 42 apps -
Craig McKeown 39 apps9 goals
Graham Hay 11 apps -
Stuart Smith 38 apps1 goal
Stuart Anderson 23 apps6 goals
Callum Bagshaw 35 apps3 goals
Hamish Munro 36 apps1 goal
Gary Clark 28 apps1 goal
Cammy Keith 40 apps31 goals
Paul Napier 27 apps4 goals
Sam French 8 apps7 goals
Craig Duguid (sub) 7 apps -
Marek Madle (sub) 7 apps1 goal
Stuart McKay (sub) 38 apps14 goals

Starting Lineup
Youngest Player:Callum Bagshaw (22 years 221 days)
Oldest Player:Graham Hay (2016 years 46 days)
Average Player Age:27 years 117 days
Domestic Players:10 (90.91 % of starting eleven)

Matchday Squad
Youngest Player:Calum Dingwall (21 years 213 days)
Oldest Player:Steven Doak (2016 years 46 days)
Average Player Age:26 years 102 days
Domestic Players:15 (88.24 % of matchday squad)

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The Scottish Cup represents, for this season at least, Formartine’s greatest hope of delivering some heart-warming glory to their fans. Unless Brora somehow loosen their apparently vice-like grip on the League title and Locos, Nairn and others falter in pursuit of the same end the North Lodge faithful have little out of the ordinary to inspire them through the forthcoming winter. A good run in the Scottish would change all that though.

As far as this game was concerned there was a bit of the hiding to nothing about it: the kudos in beating Keith is not that great – Formartine have already done so this season already and were fully expected to do so again. Therein lay the danger – a victory would be small beer but a defeat would be seriously embarrassing as well as being more than inconvenient financially. There was also the subtext that former Formartine top scorer Mike Ewen could well come back to haunt the club that sold him to his home town team. Banana skins aplenty.

In the end, despite the effects of a bumpy pitch which did not aid silky pass and move stuff, and an utterly outstanding performance between the home sticks by 16 year old David Dey, they won comfortably enough. Starting in a confidently aggressive 3-4-1-2 formation, it was clear that Formartine were approaching this as an old fashioned “by the scruff of the neck” type of cup tie where it mattered not how many you conceded provided you scored more in return. The game was a classic of this type and as such games often do, it produced a hero of the day in the form of young Keith keeper, Dey who, playing out of his youthful skin delivered a barnstorming display where he reeled of save after unlikely save against players who in some cases were twice his age.

Formartine’s “up and at ‘em” approach produced a blistering opening period where French and Napier with Keith in between piled forward into home territory and made a determined bid to set up camp therein. With the exception of a few pretty smart breakaways by Keith, they by and large managed to do this getting a fair edge in midfield where McVitie was generally calling the shots. Getting the ball into Keith territory and even into the final third was not too much of a problem: getting the ball from there into the net meant getting it past young Dey and that was a different matter entirely. On target efforts from French, Keith, Napier, Anderson and Munro were all competently and comfortably contained by the youngster.

Although Formartine were visibly the dominant force at this stage, it was by no means all one way traffic and with Formartine playing a flattish looking back three, the occasions when Keith did break some excitement ensued Massie , MacDonald and particularly Collinson looked sharp when they did get the ball but the Formartine rearguard martialled superbly by the imperturbable and astute Graham Hay did enough to dismantle their efforts and keeper Shearer on the occasions that he was called into action was more than fit for purpose.

It took almost twenty minutes of Formartine’s best offensive efforts to force a break through. It was a simple enough goal when it came: a period of pressure completed by French flipping the ball left to right across the goal mouth with enough accuracy to put the ball onto the head of the ever lively Napier who was attacking the far post. NAPIER is wee but fierce and fairly hammered the header home past the keeper.

Undaunted by the reverse Keith worked away at getting back on terms and for the next twenty minutes or thereby gave almost as good as they got. Formartine probably still had the edge in midfield where Clark in the middle was persistence itself in the arts of closing down opponents, pressing the ball and breaking up play. Anderson, principally and Bagshaw, to an extent, were the main recipients of his endeavours. A goal for Keith during this phase might well have brought them right back into contention but Formartine maintained a good grip until almost on the stroke of half time they got the decisive second goal. It was a sort of mirror image of the first in that Napier and FRENCH swapped roles and the the wee midfielder turned provider for the big forward and set him up for a header that left Dey with no chance of influencing the ball’s unerring progress from Alice banded bonce of the striker to its destination in the net.

From the outset of the second half it looked as if the next goal would be crucial and from Formartine’s perspective Keith had them rattled when they clawed one back nine minutes after the resumption. More concerning from a Pitmedden perspective was the fact that it wasn’t really against the run of play at the time and that for whatever reason, Formartine were showing, yet again, something of a dip in form early in the second half of a game. Whether or not Keith were aware of this foible, they managed to exploit it when Collinson broke free through the centre and from around twenty yards out thumped the ball to the left corner of goal towards the rapidly advancing Ewen. The ball never got there but flew into the net beyond any hope of Shearer reaching it.

Formartine have been known to fade further in similar circumstances but there was no sign of this as they buckled down and set about restoring their margin of advantage and increasing their possession rate, chasing and harrying in inspiring form simply set about showing who was boss. The next ten minutes were conducted at a furious pace –fast, aggressive, not for the faint-hearted perhaps, but not dirty at all. Formartine showed that they knew how to mix it and displaying admirable commitment, regained the upper hand. They were sustaining phases of attack-drawing the best of Dey again but the volume and intensity of their pressure was enough to win them the game. Sam FRENCH produced a cracker of a goal at a critical point. He had little to do to create the chance but the finish he applied to it had quality written all over it. Keith were weathering a backs to the wall spell of United pressure when G.Smith sclaffed his clearance only as far as the lurking striker, who looked up, noted the position of the keeper and cunningly lobbed the ball over him into the net for 3-1.

There was no way back for Keith after this: Formartine maintained their high tempo, continued to press and harry and kept Keith fairly well pinned down. hey made a few more good chances during the remaining twenty odd minutes but good though the chances were, none was good enough to get past the continuing heroic efforts of Dey.
This was a crucial win for Formartine who now progress to the European dimension of the Scottish Cup - well Berwick Rangers are really in England aren’t they?

Match report by Colin Keenan