Formartine United 4 - 0 Strathspey Thistle 

League Match
Saturday, March 24th, 2018, 3:00 PM at North Lodge Park, Pitmedden
Attendance: 77
Referee: David Watt
Formartine United v Strathspey Thistle, Mar 24th 2018, North Lodge Park, Pitmedden
Formartine United  Strathspey Thistle

Goalscorers
Scott Barbour (28)
Jamie Michie (42)
Archie MacPhee (79)
Craig McKeown (86)
None.

Team Managers
Paul Lawson Ally Munro

Starting Eleven
Kevin Main
Jevan Anderson
Craig McKeown
Jamie Michie
Stuart Smith
Stuart Anderson
Graeme Rodger
Wayne Mackintosh
Archie MacPhee
Scott Barbour
Conor Gethins
Michael MacCallum
Lee Wilson
Ross Naismith
David Ross
Cameron Lisle
Kai Taylor
James Fraser
James McShane
Nicholas Mochan
Richard Finnis
Craig MacMillan

Bench
Ewen MacDonald
Johnny Crawford
Garry Wood
Liam Burnett
Scott Ferries
Kieran Lawrence
Reece Barton
Ashley Balham
Adam McLeod
Trialist

Substitutions
Scott Ferries for Graeme Rodger (19)
Kieran Lawrence for Stuart Anderson (65)
Liam Burnett for Conor Gethins (70)
Adam McLeod for James McShane (57)
Trialist for Ross Naismieth (84)

Bookings
None. None.

Red Cards
None. None.
Appearances & Goals To Date
Kevin Main (GK) 4 apps -
Jevan Anderson 29 apps1 goal
Craig McKeown 86 apps18 goals
Jamie Michie 81 apps1 goal
Stuart Smith 188 apps17 goals
Stuart Anderson 162 apps28 goals
Graeme Rodger 131 apps43 goals
Wayne Mackintosh 30 apps4 goals
Archie MacPhee 38 apps32 goals
Scott Barbour 123 apps59 goals
Conor Gethins 63 apps21 goals
Scott Ferries (sub) 60 apps7 goals
Kieran Lawrence (sub) 21 apps1 goal
Liam Burnett (sub) 40 apps6 goals

Starting Lineup
Youngest Player:Jevan Anderson (18 years 25 days)
Oldest Player:Kevin Main (36 years 10 days)
Average Player Age:28 years 295 days
Domestic Players:10 (90.91 % of starting eleven)

Matchday Squad
Youngest Player:Jevan Anderson (18 years 25 days)
Oldest Player:Kevin Main (36 years 10 days)
Average Player Age:27 years 52 days
Domestic Players:16 (94.12 % of matchday squad)

First Team Debuts

Milestones
Jamie Michie scored his first goal for the Club.

It is less than a fortnight since Formartine gave Strathspey an eight goal roasting at the same venue.This time, on league rather than cup business, the deficit between the two was halved. Giving credit where it is due Strathspey managed to achieve this feat of damage reduction without resorting to simply stuffing the penalty area and putting all players behind the ball at all times – parking the bus as its fashionably known these days. Instead they set themselves up with two banks of four using the forward one to stifle midfield and pull it back when needed to slot into the back four. By doing this, they made a better fist of keeping United at bay than they had last time around. It was still, however, a pretty one sided affair that United dominated for the whole ninety minutes. An example of the scale of the one-sidedness was that it took Thistle until the 74th minute to record their first and only corner in a game where they managed only one shot on target throughout.

Formartine with at least one and a half eyes on the following Saturdays cup final and now well into the end of season rush of two, or more games a week, again shuffled their squad with a starting line up that saw Jamie Michie taking the right back berth normally occupied by Jonny Crawford and Connor Gethins replacing Garry Wood in the central striker role.

Formartine opened with successive waves of attack down each of the flanks. Barbour did most of his work down the left side whereas progress on the right was achieved more by advancing right back Michie by means of overlaps with midfielders. United quickly established dominance and had the visitors pinned back in their own territory but as time went on it became clear that the Strathspey ploy of the two banks of four was making it harder than expected for Formartine to get quality balls through to the front pair of Gethins and MacPhee. Somewhere around twenty to thirty yards out from the visitors goal United struggled for penetration. Strathspey were bold enough to attempt the odd breakaway and in the 5th minute Lisle tried a solo break through the middle and got almost to the edge of the United box before being neatly dispossessed by Jevan Anderson. In the 8th minute Barbour got the ball across to the head of MacPhee whose powerfully struck header flew just outside the junction of the cross bar and left upright. Five minutes later the same forward again went close with a shot on the turn from the edge of the box on the end of a Mackintosh feed.

In the 19th minute Rodger was taken off with a head injury and replaced by Scott Ferries. This made little difference to the pattern of the game and United continued their onslaught. Without anything of note for the United defence to deal with and the continued pressure on the visitors, a goal had to come. Although Wilson did a reasonable job of containing BARBOUR, persistence by the forward saw him getting past the defender now and again. In the 31st on the ended of a well timed pass from Stuart Anderson he broke into the left side of the box and from a fairly acute angle about 15 yards left of goal and four or five in from the bye-line clipped the ball neatly beyond the reach of big keeper MacCallum.

Any expectation that this would open the floodgates was ill- founded and the visitors stuck doggedly to their game plan continuing to make life difficult for the home attack who hammered away at them while still struggling for penetration in the final third. This situation continued until just before the interval when a sight rarer than arrival of the Queen of Sheeba in Pitmedden was beheld. After three years at the club, Jamie MICHIE scored his first goal. MacPhee made the opening by waltzing past a couple of defenders at the right hand corner of the box before flipping the ball to him . The finish was not a lot to write home about: a simple 6 yard shot just inside the right upright but the celebration was something else. The wiry wee full back attempted a cartwheel, but unaccustomed as he is to scoring he is clearly just as unaccustomed to the art of celebration. The abortive cartwheel misfired, he lost his balance and ended with his doup in the dubs but still clearly as happy as a pig in its proverbial medium.

The second half continued in the same pattern as the first with the resolute visitors sticking doggedly to their two banks of four and hoping to pinch something on the back of one of their very few breakaways. It was really a battle of attrition: the pressure from United was pretty well incessant and the physical demands of chasing and harrying all the time was going in time to wear down the visitors. They held out for just over half an hour during which time United missed a couple of decent chances – one when Mackintosh set up by a superb penetrating through ball by S. Anderson shot wide from fifteen yards and another when Barbour, one on one with the keeper, hooked the ball wide from near the penalty spot.

However it was clear that the visiting rearguard were flagging in the face of such sustained pressure and that another goal or more was bound to come. In the 78th minute a break by sub Liam Burnett in midfield was flipped out to Barbour and back in to MacPHEE lurking not far from the left post. He killed the ball easily and swept it into the net from four or five yards for number three.

The game was well won by then and the only point at issue was how many more goals would United rack up. Surprisingly given the extent of their dominance, it was only one more – not really a good conversion rate for the extent of dominance enjoyed by the home side but from the point when it was clear that the game was won avoiding injury ahead of the impending Cup Final was going to be a greater consideration than the eventual scale of the victory in this one. The final goal came on the back of a penalty by McKeown. Ross tripped Barbour in the box and McKeown stepped up to take the penalty. It was not the best – more left of centre than left hand corner and keeper MacCallum managed to parry the ball away but McKEOWN, following through, was on hand to slip the rebound into the other side of net.

This was a decent enough performance against a side who had a clear strategy for damage limitation. They came with a game plan and stuck doggedly to it and to the extent that it substantially reduced the margin of victory compared the previous encounter it achieved by and large what they wanted it to do.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

None.

Programme cover / Team sheet