Appearances & Goals To Date

Kevin Main (GK)		69 apps	-
Johnny Crawford		140 apps	11 goals
Darryn Kelly		11 apps	1 goal
Stuart Smith		252 apps	24 goals
Craig McKeown		136 apps	20 goals
Stuart Anderson		226 apps	34 goals
Graeme Rodger		209 apps	71 goals
Liam Strachan		19 apps	-
Aaron Norris		44 apps	3 goals
Daniel Park		39 apps	10 goals
Garry Wood		166 apps	79 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		128 apps	46 goals
Scott Lisle (sub)		25 apps	13 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This was a dour, leaden struggle between two sides struggling to regain the form that had previously propelled them to rather more sparkling performances than the current and recent form of either has yielded. It was the quarter final stage of the Aberdeeenshire Shield, held by United, played at the second time of asking following a postponement for a waterlogged surface 6 days previously. In the circumstances a still, relatively dry evening and not too heavy pitch produced conditions for a higher standard of play than either side attained.

Buckie were the more adventurous over the first 45 but United, thanks to another goalkeeping masterclass by Kevin Main and some doughty defending by a back four of Crawford, Smith, McKeown and Kelly held on in the face of at times quite sustained Buckie pressure until beginning to gain a slight edge in territory and possession in the later stages of the game.

MacAskill was pulling most of the strings for Buckie and emerged as the dominant midfield force for most of the first half. Ten minutes in he slung a left to right cross over to Fraser who teed the ball up for Urquhart who screwed the ball wide right from about 10 yards out. Ten minutes of intermittent Buckie pressure later he drove a thirty yard free kick into the heart of the Formartine defence. It rebounded or was scrambled out of immediate danger but only to Fraser whose drive forced Main to block the ball before gathering it at the base of his right upright.

The nearest to a goal in that half came was in the 31st minute when MacAskill broke through the inside left channel to off-load a vicious low twenty yarder that spun off the inside of Main's right post before being scrambled away for an corner.

Formartine, relying on the counter attack, made relatively few incursions into Buckie territory and generally eschewing midfield build up, depended on longish balls up to Wood. One such led to a corner on the right which Anderson delivered to the big striker but former Formartine stalwart “Squish” Munro hoofed the ball off the goal line and Buckie pressure resumed at the other end.

The second period saw a livelier United and after a brief spell of pressure in and around the Buckie box, a goalbound drive by Norris rebounded off Watson. Ref Duncan, never one to eschew the dramatic, decreed a handball and awarded the penalty. After an inordinate delay Wood stepped up and struck the ball to Bell's left, possibly not far enough and the keeper blocked it and grabbed the rebound to boot.

No goal but it was enough to encourage both sides to press for one and the game developed a more end to end pattern. United carved open the home defence ten minutes later when Wood got one on one with Bell but snatching at his shot hit it high, wide and anything but handsome. Right at the death, sub Gethins with only Bell to beat from the left corner of the 6 yard box, hoiked the ball over the top.

The game went straight to penalties. This was slightly delayed by the disappearance of home keeper Bell into the tunnel before emerging to face the shoot out. After Crawford confidently lashed home United's first, Main superbly saved Buckie's opening two from Urquhart and Robertson. Rodger, Anderson and Gethins all buried theirs and although Lisle's effort rebounded off Bell's boot it was United who progress to face Fraserburgh in the semi final.

Match report by Colin Keenan