Appearances & Goals To Date

Greg Sim (GK)		9 apps	-
Jevan Anderson		24 apps	-
Craig McKeown		81 apps	16 goals
Calum Dingwall		133 apps	8 goals
Jamie Michie		75 apps	-
Andrew Greig		8 apps	4 goals
Graeme Rodger		125 apps	41 goals
Paul Lawson		70 apps	19 goals
Wayne Mackintosh		25 apps	4 goals
Archie MacPhee		32 apps	26 goals
Garry Wood		94 apps	50 goals
Liam Burnett (sub)		36 apps	6 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		58 apps	20 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Just as easily as the scoreline suggests, Formartine eased their way into the quarter final stages of the Breedon Aggregates Highland League Cup where they will be at home to face the winners of the tie between Strathspey and Huntly. The basis of their smooth passage was built on superior possession and ball retention all over the pitch. United must have had a good 65% of the ball and used their time on it to swing it about the park in well constructed and neatly executed patterns that had the visitors chasing all over trying to close things down. Too often for their own good they were left chasing shadows.

The impressive thing about this was that the normal full back pairing of Crawford and Smith had been replaced by Michie and Dingwall yet the back four of these two plus McKeown and Jevan Anderson, functioned as slickly as ever. Of course United have faced sterner opposition than a team from the lower/ mid reaches of the table but, that said, the visitors were well organised and industrious and had some pretty big, strong guys deployed through the middle as the spine of a side that has a reputation for pinching points off clubs above them.

Formartine started purposefully by testing out their visitors down each flank: more directly on the left where Greig was merciless in the torment he inflicted on Mackintosh and Webb and more often by means of overlapping triangles involving full back Michie and a selection of midfielders on the right. Wood was a constant threat in the middle.

In the third minute, Dingwall set off down the left and brought in Greig just past the halfway line. Setting off like a stoat on speed, he scorched past MacKillop, braked momentarily to wrong - foot Webb before whipping over a nasty dipping ball that just eluded Wood who was attacking the back post area. A minute later a move through the centre and right involving Michie, Rodger, and Mackintosh brought in MacPhee whose edge of the box effort was not that far high and wide.

It looked like Formartine were building up a good head of steam and were not far off opening the scoring but in the 8th minute, following a clearance by keeper MacLennan, a head flick on through the middle by the statuesque Geruzel, the ball landed well for Strathspey just between Robertson and BEESTON who managed to take it a couple of steps forward before firing it past Sim for a surprise opening goal. Although decidedly against the run of play at the time, it did serve to illustrate that Clach know how to pinch a goal against even the best defences.

The effect was probably more marked on Clach who seemed to gain in belief and confidence than on United who persisted in patiently moving the ball about probing for openings. Their tempo was good and the shape clear – they were playing well and Clach, lacking their hosts finesse substituted graft and enthusiasm in defending their narrow lead. United pressure kept growing: a thirty yard drive by Lawson fizzed inches past the base of MacLennans left upright. A succession of balls into the box from the left by Greig caused all sorts of problems for an increasingly frayed looking visiting defence. From time to time a charge through the middle by McKeown would cause mayhem but somehow or another Clach held on.

It was not so much a case of their being constantly pinned back in their own final third as having to cope with wave upon wave of Formartine attack coming from all parts of the park. MacPhee, in at the back stick, got his hair but not his skull to a Greig cross and simply could not get enough on the ball to divert it into the net and a pile driver apiece from Rodger and Mackintosh were initially net bound before being deflected to safety by a knee and a rump respectively.

Something had to give but it took until the 43rd minute before United levelled. The move began quite deep with masterful McKeown calmly breaking up a thrust through the middle and slipping the ball left for Dingwall to do his fetch and carry bit down the wing before slipping the ball onto Greig who bamboozled a pair of defenders before cutting into the box where still well left of the goal he made himself enough space to drill in a searingly accurate 12 yard drive that left MacLennan with no hope of arresting its net-bound progress.

No sooner than Formartine equalised, they went ahead. Within two minutes Greig had again caused left side mayhem but this time cut the ball back to MacKINTOSH on edge of the box, a tad left of centre. The midfielder hammered the ball home past the left hand of Maclennan for number two. Until the 43rd minute Clach had expected to go in for the interval ahead. When the whistle went, they did so behind. Away from home especially, that is a bitter pill to swallow.

Formartine were relentless in the second half. Again Clach chased and harried all they could. United, with quality in every department, kept the ball well forcing the visitors to expend more energy faster than they would have wished and waited for them to tire. Signs of that were beginning to show by the mid point of half and Clach offered less and less threat. Rodger is a super-fit, high energy midfielder and the more the opposition flagged, the more he thrived. In the 70th minute he capped a blistering run through the centre/inside right route, shook off a tackle or two and launched a blistering 18 yard right foot drive into the net.

Play resumed; United went straight back on the attack and about thirty yards out, to the left of centre United won a free. LAWSON spied the route to goal and leathered the ball beyond the right corner of the wall and into the postage stamp corner of the net. MacKillop, on the goal line, got the top of his head to the ball but did no more than ensure that it bulged the roof of the net rather than the back corner. This was far too good a free kick to be written down as an own goal.

Clach stuck grimly to their increasingly thankless task of trying to shackle the rampant United. It is to their credit that they kept them out for another quarter of an hour or thereby. The pressure was intense and still delivered in successive waves from different parts of the field. Burnett, on for Mackintosh for the final 15 minutes is another high energy, pacy midfielder and was proving difficult for the tiring legs of anyone trying to mark him, to accommodate. In the 88th minute he and Rodger combined to pass their way through the flagging midfield and defence until from near the right corner of the box he off loaded a hard low drive. The advancing keeper managed to block the otherwise net bound shot, but it was far too hot for him to hold. The ball rebounded to RODGER who, cool as a cucumber, neatly chipped the ball over the now retreating keeper and into the net.

This was a very polished performance by United against a decent, well organised and hard working mid table team. Formartine are now playing with a level of assurance that matches that of the depth of talent that pervades throughout the squad. Their next game is at home to Brora Rangers and it is likely that they will be tested more rigorously then.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

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