Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Reid (GK)		53 apps	-
Jamie Michie		31 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		88 apps	6 goals
Shane Jamieson		8 apps	-
Paul Lawson		49 apps	16 goals
Stuart Anderson		105 apps	24 goals
Jamie Masson		35 apps	4 goals
Graeme Rodger		61 apps	19 goals
Scott Barbour		56 apps	27 goals
Scott Ferries		6 apps	-
Garry Wood		58 apps	38 goals
Derek Young (sub)		10 apps	2 goals
Max Berton (sub)		27 apps	1 goal
Neil Gauld (sub)		50 apps	29 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This came perilously near to United “plucking defeat from the jaws of victory”. They now must replay this second round William Hill Scottish cup tie back at North Lodge Park. That they are likely to win it is incidental to the fact that they find themselves in that position at all and largely because they made as big a miscalculation as any professionals can by underestimating the strength of the opposition. By easing off at two nil up, giving every impression that they thought they had the tie won with less than an hour of it played, they conceded an own goal and a penalty to end up vainly chasing the game in the last few minutes and realising that having taken their foot off the gas pedal, it was almost impossible to get it back on again - this against a team that had already taken the scalps of both Keith and Buckie in recent weeks and sustained a 100% success rate in this season’s Junior games. Dumb or what?

Formartine started well and quickly had Banks on the back foot with a series of moves down the flanks and through the middle, each of which rattled their hosts. The second minute attack instigated by Masson and developed by Barbour yielded a flashing cross over the goal face for Ferries who had to stretch just too far to get a full contact with the ball which he still managed to get on target. Former Formartine keeper Shearer poked it away for an unrewarded corner.

United kept hammering away at the Dee defence and certainly did enough to rattle their cage with wave upon wave of offence. They came within a whisker of an excellent early goal when, following a minute or more of sustained pressure in and around the home penalty box, Anderson, about twelve yards out and one or two to the right of goal produced an angled overhead kick that beat defenders and keeper all ends up but rebounded from the far post to be hoofed away by Duguid. The traffic wasn’t entirely one way and Banks had the odd break into United territory. However the United back four of Michie, Dingwall, Wood and Jamieson were not really stretched and Reid had little to do.

However, the longer they absorbed United pressure, the more the home side were able to inch their defensive line forward and after 15 or twenty minutes were getting to a position where they could conduct just a little more of their campaign in midfield where Henderson and both Wintons (J and K) chased and harried. They never got on top of United in this area but did enough to break up the fluency and rhythm of United. What aided them most in this endeavour was the enforced withdrawl with what looked like a muscle pull, of Garry Wood in the 14th minute. The astroturf, heavily covered in wee black, plasticky granule things, looked to be near its sell by date and several players found turning and stopping difficult. Wood was replaced by old Young but the move involved switching Lawson from midfield to centre back to deploy the sub in midfield.

United took a while to fully adjust to this and supply from midfield to forwards reduced. Ferries and Masson came deeper to find the ball but that left Barbour on his own up top more often than United probably intended. With midfield getting more crowded, it became a bit towsier and the tackles got tastier too. In the 29th minute, a joust in the air and then on the deck between Young and K. Winton ended with a yellow card for the former and cut head for the latter. Duguid took the ensuing free kick from about 30 yards out but it did little to trouble the United defence. Two minutes later as Winton returned from treatment, he reached the centre of action just outside his own box to watch YOUNG drive a fierce, low shot beyond the reach of Shearer’s right paw and into the net. Lawson had done the spade work with a run through midfield that he completed with a subtly judged through ball to Young who applied the finish from near the penalty spot. Within a minute of the resumption Winton sought revenge with what looked like a fair go at whacking Young in the kidneys. The sub responded by having an equally fair go at knocking the midfielder’s head off his shoulders. Both were summarily dismissed and the game resumed at ten a side.

It was clear that United were better at this than Banks O’ Dee. They played a fluid, open passing game and dominated proceedings from then until the interval and beyond. Another goal seemed inevitable and just prior to half time, a fierce Masson drive from 25 yards out had Shearer at full stretch to tip the ball over the top for an unrewarded corner. The second goal, seven minutes into the second half, was an inevitable outcome of the superiority United held at the time. Dingwall was causing former team mate Duguid all kinds problems on the flank and even after the Dee man was replaced by Heads, Dingers’ dominance in that area continued. It was however on the other side that the foundations of the second goal were laid. Michie, who grafted ceaselessly throughout, forayed down the flank before releasing the ball to Ferries who jinked his way to a position wide of the right side of the box before suckering Whyte into giving him the space from which to clip over and inch perfect pass which BARBOUR took knee high and diverted smartly into the net past the advancing Shearer.

At this stage the evidence suggested that if United continued as they were, they would almost certainly extend their lead. Perhaps it was anxiety about possible injury on a surface that many of them seemed to find hard to trust, or maybe they just thought they had done enough, but Formartine pace dropped visibly thereafter. They moved the ball about sweetly, stringing together long sequences of passes and often had Banks chasing shadows. The United level of possession was high but there was no visible passion and they created little penetration. Some describe this as “showboating”.

For all United held territorial advantage they had changed down the gears too early: in the 62nd minute. An under-struck pass from United in the left of Dee midfield was picked up by Robertson moved on to the remaining Winton and quickly on to Hamilton and the United defence had to back pedal furiously. As Hamilton tried to cross the ball right to left over the box to Lennox, LAWSON got his head to it and in trying to direct it to safety, managed to flight it over and beyond Reid into the back of his own net.

This changed the complexion of the game, got the Dee tails up and sowed some seeds of doubt in United minds. Trying to regain momentum lost is notoriously difficult and United were stuck with the quandary of whether to try to protect or extend a one goal lead against an improving opposition. The game got messy then with little fluency from either side. United were certainly not showboating now but neither were they able to develop the pressure they had earlier, but they were at least holding their own - until the final dramatic turn in the tie. With 6 minutes to go Dee sub Sopel was chasing a loose ball at the right corner of the United box. Both keeper Reid and left back Dingwall were heading there too. Despite what looked like a case of high feet by the Dee player, the ref awarded a penalty presumably for a foul on him by either the keeper or the full back. LENNOX drove this home hard and low to the keeper’s right to equalise.

United tried to pull the fat from the fire but will have to wait a week to continue their efforts.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie