Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		16 apps	-
Jamie Michie		41 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		97 apps	7 goals
Stuart Smith		133 apps	11 goals
Shane Jamieson		18 apps	2 goals
Stuart Anderson		115 apps	26 goals
Jamie Masson		44 apps	8 goals
Graeme Rodger		71 apps	23 goals
Derek Young		15 apps	3 goals
Scott Barbour		66 apps	32 goals
Conor Gethins		20 apps	12 goals
Max Berton (sub)		33 apps	2 goals
Neil Gauld (sub)		59 apps	32 goals
Scott Ferries (sub)		14 apps	1 goal

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The historical significance of this game is that never in their history have United, in League or Cup competition, failed to defeat Fort William. Now they have. The current significance of it - apart from the obvious embarrassment - is that on a Saturday when Cove dropped points at Fraserburgh and Buckie were beaten, only Brora of the current crop of championship contenders were able to stretch their lead over United who remain in fourth place. In that sense they have not been punished as severely as might have been expected for a display which contained periods of reasonable competence interspersed with passages of abject incompetence.

In successive Saturdays they have faced, home and away the bottom two teams in the league and, frankly, struggled to impose themselves convincingly on either. Each, lacking flair players with exotic skills or electrifying pace relied on the old fashioned virtues of organisation and application and Formartine barely had it within them to handle persistent close marking and the simple determination to compete for every ball. On this recent evidence – and the word will get around United –can, by such means, be stopped from getting their game together. Both Strathspey and Fort William had enough spirit and resolution to largely offset whatever more exotic qualities Formartine may have been thought to offer in the way of perceived “quality”. If quality relates to fitness for purpose and such purpose equates with overcoming simple but spirited resistance then too many United players who may assume the mantle of quality, simply failed to deliver it.

The game began at a brisk rather than hectic pace and United had more of the early possession. Almost all of it was in the area between the two boxes and United played more of the ball in Fort’s half than vice versa. It didn’t look too bad for a while. Fort have a reputation for starting brightly enough and already their strategy was clear: they would chase and harry as hard as they could and when opportunity arose sling longish balls up to Ellis and Foggo, both of whom showed good touch and a bit of pace. United’s strategy was to try to get the ball in behind the home back line [which often looked flattish and square by using the flanks where Masson and Barbour, supplemented by wing backs Michie and Dingwall, were encouraged to operate. They did this to an extent but also at times seemed to check inwards when approaching the final third and the ball seldom reached areas near the corner flags. In the 8th minute a longish ball from the back by Chisholm was taken neatly by Ellis and fed on to Maclellan who had enough space to offload a low drive that flew past Macdonald’s right upright.

A minute later Maclellan was at it again – a similar approach albeit a bit further left this time. Foggo was the one who collected the long ball from the back and slipped it to Davidson on its route to Maclellan who skelped the ball viciously goal ward only to see it rebound to safety off the junction of upright and cross bar. United had more of the possession but Fort had delivered more goal threat. It continued this way and United were forced to battle hard in the midfield and they did manage to win a fair share of possession but such was the home side’s determination to close things down that Anderson, Rodger and Masson who saw a decent amount of the ball were so harried that their capacity to feed it forward to the front pair of Barbour and Gethins was severely restricted. As a consequence, the two front men dropped deeper looking for supply and the midfield became even more congested.

After twenty minutes had gone United began to thread a few passes through chinks in the home midfield. A flashing left to right cross by Barbour for Gethins nearly did the trick but the latter’s connection, at full stretch, slipped past the keepers left upright. At this stage it looked like United would turn the tide enough to get establish a pre – interval lead and they forced two or three corners over the next ten minutes. All were cleared without too much difficulty. In the 31st minute United had strong claims for a penalty declined: Barbour had got himself past Mainland and into the box with ball under control and attempting to nip through a gap between Moffat and Macrae who both then closed it by muscling him to the ground before the latter booted the ball into the crowd. No penalty was given.

In the 36th minute Gethins was rather cruelly denied an opening goal when he beat Broomfield and Macrae to give himself space enough for a shot, just right of centre and about fifteen yards out. As the keeper advanced the striker cracked the ball which rebounded down from the underside of the bar and straight into the fortunate arms of a relieved Maclennan.

From then until the interval the normal service of midfield congestion interspersed with the odd longer ball from the back continued without incident or result, beyond MacDonald making a good block from a Foggo shot after the latter had got to one on one with him.

The second half opened with United on the offensive and managing initially to get some wide balls beyond the home rearguard. The consequent crosses were cleared, mostly at the expense of unrewarded corners. At this point it looked like United were in the process of moving up a gear and that a goal was in the offing, but their initial surge fizzled out after no more than ten minutes and Fort were no longer on the back foot but showing serious intentions of winning. A drive by Mainland from the edge of the box rattled the cross bar on its way over the top and Davidson worked his way behind his markers and into the box from the left side. One on one with keeper Macdonald, he was about to deliver his shot when the advancing keeper continued the advance to the point that it brought the forward to the deck. Perhaps in atonement for the denial of Barbour earlier or for some other reason, no penalty was given.

In the 63rd minute Fort managed what Formartine had spent over an hour trying to achieve by getting the ball to the corner, behind defence and over and into the net. The principal architect was ELLIS who started and finished the move by working the ball from forty yards out down to the right corner getting past Dingwall and away from Smith he drove the ball from a still quite tight angle and about twelve yards out to the right, past Macdonald and into the far corner about a foot inside the upright.

If United needed a wake up call this was it. To be fair to them, they levelled after 6 minutes and that 6 minutes was spent in consistent and persistent offence that had Fort hemmed well into their own back yard. Shots rained in but such was the depth and determination of the defence Maclennan was still less than over occupied. Masson did the spade work for the equaliser with a powerful run down the left flank where he forced his way past Mainland before driving a powerful cross over the goal face. MacLennan got something on it but failed to hold the ball which spilled away into the path of BARBOUR who was blasting down the inside right route collected the ball and very smartly banged beyond the reach of the keepers outstretched left hand and waist high into the net from 15 yards range.

Any conception that this could be the beginning of the end for the home side was swept away when they resumed the offensive, but united were doughty enough at the back for Jameson and Smith to make crucial tackles on Davidson and Foggo respectively. United brought on Gauld for Gethins and Ferries for Barbour and despite sometimes quite prolonged periods of pressure around but seldom inside the home penalty area lacked the ammunition with which to win the game. Powerful shots from Dingwall and Anderson, both from around 25 yards were taken by the keeper who also blocked a close range effort from Barbour. This was not a good day for United.

Match report by Colin Keenan