Appearances & Goals To Date

Kevin Main (GK)		50 apps	-
Michael Clark		1 app (debut)	-
Johnny Crawford		134 apps	11 goals
Craig McKeown		120 apps	19 goals
Stuart Smith		237 apps	23 goals
Andrew Greig		65 apps	23 goals
Graeme Rodger		186 apps	65 goals
Wayne Mackintosh		49 apps	6 goals
Gary McGowan		6 apps	3 goals
Scott Lisle		1 app (debut)	-
Garry Wood		142 apps	71 goals
Liam Strachan (sub)		1 app (debut)	-
Conor Gethins (sub)		110 apps	43 goals
Jordan Leydon (sub)		7 apps	1 goal

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

	Michael Clark	(Signed June 15th, 2019)
	Scott Lisle	(Signed July 23rd, 2019)
	Liam Strachan	(Signed July 24th, 2019)

Milestones

After Cove's departure to higher things, this season's Highland League competition is a fascinating one: Formartine have serious and immediate competition from Brora, Buckie and the Broch for the title and although Broch and Brora have lifted it a fair few times between them in recent years, Formartine have maintained the most consistent record of attainment over the last decade. Could this be the season that they go on to make that final step to gain the title and reach the level to which they intensely aspire?

There has been significant close season recruitment activity with the arrival of centre back Michael Clark from Huntly, forward Scott Lisle from Strathspey and midfielder Liam Strachan from Turriff. All played their part in this victory. A strong opening statement of intent was what was needed to nail United's title chasing credentials to the SHFL mast and this result and the manner in which it was achieved, did exactly that. Although few would consider Keith to be title contenders, their performance over the tail end of the season past suggests that on a good day and with a following wind they are capable of upsetting the apple carts of much more fancied sides. United had to be wary: more than one title campaign had been blown by under-performing against teams they were expected to beat quite comfortably.

Any residual anxiety that they might under-estimate the level of effort needed to make a clear statement of their Chamionship was dispelled in the opening minutes. United began it at a furious pace which, by and large, they sustained for the full 90 minutes. Every player looked to be at optimum fitness, well drilled and clearly motivated to a game where they produced a level of high tempo pass and move football that never allowed Keith to threaten them at any stage but Marc Young and Max Berton struggled to cope with the pace and intensity that United presented and the wily predator, Cammy Keith was so tightly shackled by McKeown and Clark that he never managed a single shot at goal. In his defence he had very little of the ball because United's midfield and forwards were running the show from the get go.

Such was the quality of United's overall team performance that it is difficult to single out any individual contributions but midfielder Graeme Rodger's hat trick was undeniably a major contribution to the final score-line and the debut of Scott Lisle clearly excited the approbation of the United faithful.

It took Formartine less than a minute to force their hosts onto the back foot: virtually from the kick off the ball was flipped out right to Greig who jinked forward a pacy twenty yards or so before slipping the ball inside to Lisle who was thundering down the inside right track like one of the new Hyundai trains that Scot Rail promised us. He got to the box but keeper Dey got far enough off his line to thwart the inevitable shot. The pressure continued and yielded a United corner on the right. Greig found McKeown's head from it and again Dey was in action: he got the ball away from immediate danger but only as far as Wood whose shot on the turn was hoofed to safety a yard from goal by, of all people, striker Cammy Keith. That was the level of the pressure even that early in the game. Keith were having serious difficulty in getting the ball out of their own half and clearly struggled with the momentum that United's movement on and off the ball generated. A goal was clearly on the cards and if there was anything surprising about it, it would have been that it took almost ten minutes to arrive. The fact that it was RODGER who produced it was no surprise; he had already been running the Keith defenders ragged with powerful surges carrying the ball through midfield to dangerous positions. He both started and completed the move for this opener. A pacy, powerful surge through the middle took him to a fairly central position 35 yards out where he was surrounded by three worried defenders. He slipped the ball out to his left to meet the run of left back Smith who completed the exchange of passes by returning the ball to the midfielder who had been able get away from the markers, control the ball and drive it low under the advancing Dey and into the right corner of the net.

Pressure continued and as the home side were so comprehensively contained in their own territory full backs Crawford and Smith took almost turn about of advancing down the flanks in support of attacking moves. Lisle was proving quite a handful for the home midfield and defence with strong determined and direct runs at and past defenders. In the 14th minute after one such run had delivered the ball to a congested penalty box he seized on a partial clearance to hit a sizzling drive inches past the left upright.

Ref Macfarlane is no stranger to controversy and in this game his capacity to produce decisions that seem to defy common sense reached new heights. In the 21stth minute following a bit of a seige to the home goal area the ball broke loose to a position about 15 yards out and a bit left of centre, Lisle was onto it in a flash and hammered it through a ruck of players into the net. The ref blows whistle and the ball is retrieved from the net. A goal one would call this but not so dangerous Dan. So keen is eagle eye and so swift is he to blow his whistle the “goal” (as all but he would describe it) was disallowed. He decreed a penalty kick instead. The normally reliable Greig stepped up to the 12 yard mark but, a bit nonplussed by the circumstances, failed to execute with his normal ruthless efficiency. Dey got a paw to it down at the base of his right upright and the ball was loose a yard or two from the post until RODGER steamed in to despatch it to the net.

The only conceivable rationale for the ref's failure to use the “advantage rule” and allow the goal to be the advantage accruing to the wronged side after the foul for the penalty, was that having blown (however prematurely) for the penalty, the ball had entered the net after that point and would technically have been no longer in play. Had he waited, even momentarily to see whether advantage would accrue before blowing, the goal would have stood.

Almost incredibly the whistle happy chappy was premature again within a couple of minutes: blowing for a throw in before the ball went out of play. It didn't get that far so he had to restart the game with a dropped ball. One can but hope that this remarkable tendency for the premature does not impinge on the more personal aspects of his life.

The first half continued with Formartine calling the shots but at two down half way through the first half, Keith went for a more damage limitation approach and tried to stuff the midfield and stifle United's attacking verve. It possibly slowed down the rate with which goals were coming, but it didn't get them back into it as an attacking force.
United now started some of their moves a little deeper but they were still the dominant force by some way. A five minute water break was a brief respite for Keith who held out without getting further behind until the interval.

However with Rodger sniffing a hat trick United started the second half with renewed, even increased force. A minute in and the hat trick was complete. Greig occupied a trio of homesters near the right corner of the box before delivering it across the 6 yard area where both Rodger and Wood were pressing the back post area. RODGER was first to the ball and clipped it into the net from 4 or 5 yards out.

The game as contest was well over by this stage and the only remaining issue was the scale of United's inevitable victory. Gary WOOD knows how to work defences hard and had been a thorn in Keith's flesh throughout. In the 57th minute he was the recipient of a longish ball forward from the middle of his own half by Mackintosh. Taking it a bit forward from the centre circle he scorched off down the middle until concluding that he was in range twenty yards out to despatch a thumping drive that Dey despite getting his right hand to it, was unable to do enough to prevent the force of the delivery carrying the ball to its destination at the back of the net.

United pressure continued and the later stages of the game were conducted largely in the home final third. Dey pulled off good saves from Smith, Crawford, Wood, Rodger and Clark before CRAWFORD in the midst of a goalmouth that had seen more melees than a butchers back shop concluded the scoring in the 88th minute by forcing home a loose ball from close range with Wood in close support. By any measure this was not just a promising display: it was impressive.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie