Appearances & Goals To Date

Errol Watson (GK)		6 apps	-
Michael Clark		7 apps	2 goals
Stuart Smith		243 apps	23 goals
Wayne Mackintosh		54 apps	6 goals
Stuart Anderson		209 apps	34 goals
Graeme Rodger		191 apps	65 goals
Liam Strachan		7 apps	-
Kieran Lawrence		66 apps	2 goals
Jordan Leydon		10 apps	2 goals
Scott Lisle		7 apps	5 goals
Garry Wood		148 apps	73 goals
Gregor Whyte (sub)		3 apps	-
Andrew Greig (sub)		70 apps	24 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Despite Huntly's indifferent start to the season, this was never going to be a pushover for Formartine. Huntly aren't quite their bogey side but over the years they have scuppered United hopes on a fair few occasions. As this was a cup game, it offered Huntly an early opportunity to get their thus far under-achieving season back on track. Not quite a hiding to nothing for United but certainly a potential “banana skin”.

Huntly's utter determination to turn their season around was evident from the start as they set out their stall to match up United by man marking them right across the park. They correctly anticipated United's high tempo start and worked their socks off to match it, which by and large they managed. As early as the 4th minute they forced a penalty. A slightly understruck midfield pass by United was seized on by MacDonald and fed out through the inside right channel to Booth. Entering the box he was tracked by Smith who attempted to clear. The former Formartine forward harried the defender enough for him to need a second attempt to get the ball clear. As the defender tried to boot clear the wily forward found enough of his leg to impede his progress and went to deck. Soft but a penalty nonetheless.

Justice was served as Booth taking the spot kick himself, hit it tamely enough for Watson to not only reach the ball but to hold it as well. The game continued in the same pattern with United being frustrated by the damage limitation approach of the home side and although the pace was more than brisk the football was less than fluent. The more Huntly tried to close things down, the more United relied on getting long balls up to target man Wood. However these were frequently from long enough range for him to need to take them with his back to goal and then turn in the face of tight marking to face the goal again.

However United had the quality needed to get on top of all this and direct running through the channels by Lisle and Rodger began to create holes in the home defence. A thumping 8th minute free kick by Leyden from 25 yards beat the wall and the keeper but rebounded from the base of Farquhar's right upright. Bit by bit United were asserting themselves but it took until the 33rd minute to get in front. A break through the middle by Roger, Wood and Lisle took out Herd, Jack and Johnstone and after Wood peeled off to the left to launch a ball diagonally over the 6 yard box, LISLE charged through to hammer the ball high into the net. This looked like being the first of a few more as United pressed to increase their lead. A similar move by Rodger and LEYDEN carved open the home defence again and the latter swept the ball past the advancing Farquhar from about 8 yards out for number two in the 42nd minute.

The second half was heavily one sided apart from a penalty in the 63rd minute that came in the wake of an off side decision against Wood. Meres jumped at the keeper who was advancing towards him. He then hit the deck with a fair commotion. Ross sunk the spot kick. United pummelled them from then until the end. Good goal keeping and bad luck kept the score where it was. United pressure produced a corner kick tally of 19-3 in their favour but there were no more goals.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie