Partick Thistle 4 - 0 Formartine United

Scottish Cup - 4th Round
Saturday, January 21st, 2017, 3:00 PM at Firhill Stadium, Glasgow
Attendance: 2,782
Referee: Craig Charleston
Partick Thistle v Formartine United, Jan 21st 2017, Firhill Stadium, Glasgow
Partick Thistle Formartine United 

Goalscorers
Chris Erskine (10)
Steven Lawless (30)
Chris Erskine (31)
Abdul Osman (64)
None.

Team Managers
Alan Archibald Kris Hunter

Starting Eleven
Tomas Cerny
Callum Booth
Sean Welsh
Abdul Osman
David Amoo
Kris Doolan
Chris Erskine
Steven Lawless
Adam Barton
Christie Elliot
Daniel Devine
Ewen MacDonald
Johnny Crawford
Stuart Smith
Stuart Anderson
Jamie Masson
Graeme Rodger
Paul Lawson
Derek Young
Scott Barbour
Scott Ferries
Garry Wood

Bench
Mark Ridgers
Mustapha Dumbuya
Ade Azeez
Ryan Edwards
Declan McDaid
Ziggy Gordon
Andrew McCarthy
Andy Reid
Jamie Michie
Calum Dingwall
Shane Jamieson
Max Berton
Neil Gauld
Conor Gethins

Substitutions
Mustapha Dumbuya for Callum Booth (45)
Ade Azeez for David Amoo (63)
Andrew McCarthy for Sean Welsh (76)
Calum Dingwall for Derek Young (45)
Conor Gethins for Stuart Anderson (72)
Neil Gauld for Graeme Rodger (82)

Bookings
None. None.

Red Cards
None. None.

Appearances & Goals To Date
Ewen MacDonald (GK) 19 apps -
Johnny Crawford 56 apps3 goals
Stuart Smith 136 apps11 goals
Stuart Anderson 118 apps26 goals
Jamie Masson 47 apps8 goals
Graeme Rodger 74 apps24 goals
Paul Lawson 52 apps17 goals
Derek Young 18 apps3 goals
Scott Barbour 69 apps32 goals
Scott Ferries 17 apps1 goal
Garry Wood 62 apps38 goals
Calum Dingwall (sub) 99 apps7 goals
Conor Gethins (sub) 23 apps12 goals
Neil Gauld (sub) 62 apps33 goals

Starting Lineup
Youngest Player:Scott Ferries (20 years 325 days)
Oldest Player:Derek Young (36 years 248 days)
Average Player Age:28 years 49 days
Domestic Players:11 (100.00 % of starting eleven)

Matchday Squad
Youngest Player:Scott Ferries (20 years 325 days)
Oldest Player:Derek Young (36 years 248 days)
Average Player Age:27 years 304 days
Domestic Players:17 (94.44 % of matchday squad)

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The reason that the story of David and Goliath persists is that the wee guy seldom beats the big one and in this case, the bookies scorning the likelihood of Formartine’s David toppling Premier League Partick Thistle to the extent of offering odds of 18 and 20 to 1 against that outcome, were proved right. It was a memorable day out for the near 250 Formartine faithful who made the journey south in great good spirits which they maintained almost without exception until the final whistle of what turned out to be, despite the efforts of the Pitmedden men, a fairly one sided affair. They will however reflect that only seven years ago their team was trawling about in the second tier of Junior football and this defeat, as painful as it was expected, came in the 4th round of the Scottish Cup, from a full time Premier League team fresh back from their mid-season Mediterranean break. Hopes were dashed but United were far from disgraced.

It was expected that Thistle would try to go for the jugular straight from the off and they did just that and put together about twenty slick passes before Formartine got their first kick of the ball as full back Smith managed to force Lawless wide and poked the ball out of play to relieve the first of several repeated waves of pressure from the home side. The difference between the full and part time nature of the respective sides was evident in the way that Thistle could press space to the extent that Formartine were never allowed enough time on the ball to play to their shape and impose their pattern on the game. They were well on the back foot for the first ten minutes during which time the game was played almost entirely in their territory. Once or twice a long ball from the back would land somewhere in the vicinity of Garry Wood but he was closely policed by Osman and Amoo and the Thistle onslaught resumed. Partick were fluent, organised and they had big, fit guys throughout so it was inevitable that they would give United a hard time. Of course they deserved respect, but perhaps United (in the first half anyway) afforded them just a touch more of it than they should have.

United’s back four of Young, Smith, Lawson and Crawford were hard worked from the outset, but their strategy was to keep Thistle and the ball out of their penalty area and it looked as this might just let them weather the opening storm. A long ball down the left was worked over to Barbour and getting just the better of Booth he forced a diving save from Cerny to intercept a ball driven low and hard over the goal face towards the advancing Wood. Sadly for United this attracted a venomous riposte with a lighting break down the wide and inside left channels. It ended with a foul on Lawless about 35 yards out roughly in line with the left edge of the box. In what looked like a well-rehearsed training ground routine Amoo clipped the free kick to a central area about 15 yards out from which it was immediately delivered to Osman who delivered a measured cut-back into the path of ERSKINE who then drilled the ball low and hard past the left hand of keeper MacDonald for a 10th minute opener.

United kept their act together and although still playing second fiddle to their hosts nevertheless began to shift the focus of play forward from the edge of their box and up nearer to half way. Their share of possession also rose. They never really mustered a sustained goal threat but for all that Partick would press and try to dictate, United were beginning, it seemed, to claw their way slowly and painfully into the game and showed flashes of menace here and there. Wood and Barbour fought tooth and nail for every scrap they could get. Ferries caused problems with powerful tricky runs and did enough to reduce Osman into a fairly (by his standards) crass foul about 30 yards out in line with the left corner of the box. The ensuing free by Masson found the head of a closely marked Wood but the delivery landed on the roof of the net.

The hopes were however fragile and dashed in the cruellest way possible. Two goals in the space of a minute utterly rained on United’s parade. Just as it looked like the tide could turn (although it might have needed something like a lunar eclipse to make it happen) Thistle showed the ruthless streak that football with the big boys in the Premier League requires. They responded to this incursion into their territory provoked a passage of fast flowing football from midfield, initiated by Elliot and developed by Doolan who slipped the ball through the inside left channel to LAWLESS at the edge of the box. A quick check in and left gave him the space from which to rattle home a vicious drive that left MacDonald with no chance. A minute later, on the half hour mark United’s hopes were completely blown when ERSKINE completed his double with a classy finish by splitting Smith and Crawford to get himself one on one with the advancing keeper before flipping the ball neatly beyond his reach for the third.

To their credit Formartine still chased and harried and although perhaps realising that defeat was all but inevitable refused to roll over and continued to make life as difficult as possible for Maryhill’s finest. To their credit, they did this for the next 34 minutes.
They struggled to mount the goal threat that they had achieved just prior to the debilitating double whammy but nevertheless refused to do the negative thing of stuffing 8 or 9 behind the ball and substituting Young with Dingwall at the interval, managed from the start of the second period, to defend a bit further forward again and offered a degree of challenge in the midfield area. There were passages of play where United showed that they had what it took to string a sequence of passes together and move the ball from box to box with some pace and the occasional flash of flair from, in particular, Ferries and Rodger. Lawson had guile to match a pair of still pretty quick feet but was confined, of necessity to a much more defensive role than usual.

For all that, Thistle still had the upper hand and on the balance of play probably deserved one more goal. It duly arrived in the 63rd minute from the powerful Abdul Osman. A period of sustained pressure on the Formartine rearguard who struggled (but with reasonable success) to contain the scorching pace of Thistle’s half time sub DUMBUYA on the right resulted in a crowded penalty box, a couple of corners in quick succession and backs to the wall defending until the pacy sub got the ball to the corner flag and drilled it into the goal mouth from where it was cleared to the edge of the box where, in turn, a neat pass and move with Doolan gave OSMAN sight of goal and from 15 yards or so out. From there, he banged home the fourth and final nail in the coffin of United dreams.

United battled on: sub Gethins (a striker) replaced Anderson (a midfielder), with Wood dropping back to defence and it was clear that United really, really wanted at least a consolation goal for a souvenir. Gethins almost did the trick in the 80th minute getting one on one with the keeper from near the penalty spot but with Welsh and Osman bearing down on him his shot was hurried, snatched and a yard right of target. That was United’s best chance of the match but it wasn’t to be. Gauld, another striker, came on in the last ten minutes or so but Thistle simply stifled things in midfield and with the professionalism one would expect from a side at that level game, maintained a clean sheet.
Prospects of a United victory were always in the realm of dreams but they gave a vocal and genial crowd of almost 250 supporters (226 went through the turnstiles but there were others in hospitality etc.) something to dream of. Getting to round 4 is a huge achievement in its own right – they were beaten on the day but certainly didn’t let down their faithful in the process.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

Programme cover / Team sheet

Ticket stub / Admission info