Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Reid (GK)		32 apps	-
Johnny Crawford		31 apps	2 goals
Calum Dingwall		63 apps	4 goals
Stuart Smith		101 apps	8 goals
Paul Lawson		28 apps	8 goals
Stuart Anderson		83 apps	20 goals
Jamie Masson		22 apps	2 goals
Graeme Rodger		34 apps	11 goals
Scott Barbour		33 apps	15 goals
Cammy Keith		97 apps	70 goals
Garry Wood		33 apps	25 goals
Hamish Munro (sub)		62 apps	2 goals
Callum Bagshaw (sub)		71 apps	9 goals
Neil Gauld (sub)		30 apps	13 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Formartine’s title challenge remains on track but it took them until the very last minute of the game to make sure of it. Keith, on the back of 6 wins on the trot, fought them every inch of the way for every minute of the game hoping to continue their winning run. The tension between the conflicting needs of each side made for an exciting spectacle but the gluey, squelching underfoot conditions killed any conception of silky flowing football stone dead. This was a fight to the finish in the dubs and nonetheless exciting for it.

The first half went largely Keith’s way simply because they adapted better to the conditions. It wasn’t a day for “playing football”; more one for lumping the ball up the park, getting it into the box and running hard after it and Keith were better at that for longer than were the visitors. The game was only two and a half minutes old when Keith caused maximum embarrassment to United. Formartine made a brief opening foray down the left which was summarily dealt with by Milne and Ralton and used as a platform from which to launch Clark and Fraser down the opposite flank. This use of the long ball left Dingwall and others who had advanced in support of the abortive attack virtually stranded and with a heap of unprotected space beyond the left corner of the box. Hesitancy between Reid and Wood meant that CLARK was left with time and space to measure his angled drive beyond the range of the defenders and into the far corner of the net.

Buoyed by this, Keith produced a near replica of the same which left Fraser in the same area a minute later. His finishing effort was decent but finished an inch or two wide. United were living dangerously and it looked like Keith were quicker to the ball than they were. On closer inspection the issue seemed to be one of adapting better to conditions than of a superior appetite for the ball. In midfield Formartine tried to persist with their normal, slick, high tempo, first touch game full of flicks, nudges, wee chips etc. Problem was that these tended to stick in the glaur as much in the range of Keith feet, as their intended destinations. In these circumstances, supply to the front pair of Keith and Barbour was intermittent at best. The poorer the supply, the more vulnerable they became to being caught off side impatiently trying to pinch a yard on the defensive line in pursuit of the few balls that did get through. In the 11th minute a break through inside left by Rodger looked promising before Ralton shouldered him off the ball to gain partial relief. Smith breaking in from the left wing got to the loose ball and from an acute angle left of goal, delivered a good low drive that failed just to squeeze in at the back stick.

A free kick for United 20 odd yards out after a shirt tug on Dingwall by Spink yielded a free from Lawson that flew a bit wide left, but it wasn’t until after the half hour mark that Formartine were able to sustain any real pressure. In the 33rd minute Keith seemed to be illegally impeded by Milne but play continued. Barbour had a shot blocked in a densely populated 6 yard box. Soo too did Rodger but Keith had the numbers and the will to close down whatever Formartine could muster and eventually took the fight back to the other end and forced three corners in rapid succession. The two from the right were delivered by Fraser and the one on the left by Spink. All in their way created a measure of pressure for United but crucially, with determined and spirited (rather than coolly disciplined) defending, Formartine held out, only one goal adrift until the interval. Keith had got the better of that half and the single goal advantage was just about the measure of it.

It was clear that for Formartine, more of the same wasn’t going to cut it in the second half. Changes were made. Keith was hooked at the interval and Munro introduced at right back to allow Wood to lead the line up front. To accommodate this, Dingwall was swapped from right to left back and Smith pushed over from left back to partner Crawford as centre back. Before they could even see where each other was, let alone work out roles and territory, Keith cashed in with a lightning strike. With a direct burst from the left into the box, Fraser got behind the defence to get the ball beyond keeper Reid to Luke BARBOUR with the goal at his mercy to fire home from around 12 yards out. Formartine were in serious trouble and both sides knew it. A draw was no use to United and they had to adopt the win or bust approach of a cup tie to survive. This served to ramp up the pressure of an already high tempo, high intensity game and it took on an end to end aspect. With Garry Wood up top Formartine were more direct in attack and although shots on target were few and comfortably managed by Bell, United were now giving as good as they got.

In a game of twists and turns, the one that emerged as the event that turned the game United’s way came in the 57th minute when a late slithering two footed tackle by centre half Crawford on Ewen saw both down and requiring treatment. Crawford, booked for his pains, hobled off to be replaced by striker Gauld necessitating further major surgery as the defence was re-organised into a back three with Smith returning to left back, Dingwall to right back and the taller Munro moving to the centre for a 3-4-3. It was bold and anything but risk averse but it won them the game as the mercurial wee Gauld atoning for his penalty failure the previous week, produced both the equaliser and the winner.

Garry WOOD got United back in contention in the 65th minute with a classic back post header off a cross from Barbour who had done well to beat Clark to get into position to clip the ball left to right from the side of the box. The finishing header was powerful and accurately directed down and beyond the keeper. This gave Formartine the belief that they could get more from what had looked earlier to have been beyond them. They also looked the fitter side and in the glue pot conditions this was a crucial factor as they went about winning the battle of the dubs. Mounting wave upon wave of attack they kept Keith pinned back for longer and longer with each one. The danger for Keith increased with each and whenever the home side tried a breakaway to exploit the visitors’ back three, they were hunted down and the ball returned to the inferno in the home goalmouth.

Sub Bagshaw made a positive difference by running with the ball at increasingly tired defenders and began to exert some torture on them down the right. Dribbling into the box he was met with a forest of legs but still did enough to leave the ball birling in front of defenders only a few yards in front of goal. GAULD, like an electrified ferret, was onto it in a trice and whipped it into the net in the 84th minute. There was only one team in it now and the only issue was whether United could get another in the time left. In the 90th minute, GAULD again, from another Bagshaw foray on the flank clipped the ball home from close range to pinch all three points.

Match report by Colin Keenan