Appearances & Goals To Date

Kevin Main (GK)		88 apps	-
Johnny Crawford		158 apps	15 goals
Darryn Kelly		30 apps	1 goal
Stuart Smith		262 apps	26 goals
Craig McKeown		154 apps	22 goals
Stuart Anderson		237 apps	34 goals
Graeme Rodger		228 apps	81 goals
Aaron Norris		62 apps	5 goals
Daniel Park		57 apps	12 goals
Jonathan Smith		6 apps	3 goals
Garry Wood		177 apps	83 goals
Andrew Greig (sub)		95 apps	27 goals
Scott Lisle (sub)		42 apps	20 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		147 apps	52 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The fact that this 2nd round tie in the William Hill Scottish Cup needed 120 minutes of play and a penalty shoot out to settle it was a fair reflection of how closely matched these two teams were. Never at any point was there an indication in the style or standard of play that the League

visitors came from a higher tier of the game. Given that United have had a period of inaction since their last competitive game in the first week of January while the visitors were spared that aspect of Lockdown, their task looked formidable albeit the reward for victory - a home tie against Premier League Motherwell was seductive in the extreme.

The game began at a fair lick with Annan initially more fluent than Formartine, keeping a generally tidy shape in midfield and feeding balls via Wallace and Macaw to the lively looking Smith for the first five or ten minutes. United were made to work hard to match up and close down some early attacks. Despite managing to make their presence felt at the Annan end after a Stuart Smith charge down the left and a Park snapshot that flew just wide right, United found themselves a goal adrift in the 6th minute. Wright clipped the ball wide left to Wallace but continued his forward run to the front edge of the box to flick on the return for SMITH to drill it past Main’s right hand from ten yards put.

This looked ominous for United but they had both the character and the game to cope. Without any appearance of panic they began to impose themselves on Athletic. There was a bit of huff and puff about it but the scales of lay off rust were shed as they began to squeeze the visitors back into the final third at the village end. Full backs Crawford and Smith were linking well with midfield and forwards and shots, albeit from distance, began to show their intent. Aaron Norris and Johnny Smith went close and Kinnear stretched to take a Graeme Rodger drive. It didn’t take United long to get right back in it and a after brief period of sustained pressure they equalised in some style after a finely judged cross from Crawford was met by a ferocious downward header from Stuart Smith as he crashed the ball home in the 20th minute.

From then on United looked like that they had at least as much to offer as Annan as well as the confidence to go with that. It was never elegant, seldom fluent, but always full of genuine endeavour. Possession and territory were fairly evenly shared until the interval. Thereafter United gradually gained the upper hand in each of those dimensions and were decidedly unfortunate not to take the lead after a sweeping foray into visiting territory concluded with a quickly taken 12 yarder from Rodger rebounding to relative safety from the right upright in the 67th minute.

For their part Annan felt hard done by when a Smith effort was cleared off the goal line a couple of minutes later. With extra time beckoning the visitors maximised pressure on the United box and although it needed a couple of saving tackles from McKeown and Kelly to do it, Formartine

held out resolutely. They dominated the first period of extra time but failed to get the necessary breakthrough. Annan weren’t going home without a fight and clawed their way back into it in the final fifteen, but again United were having none of it and the game went to penalties. Birthday boy keeper Kevin Main has a well deserved reputation as a penalty save expert and enhanced it with an outstanding shoot out display by stopping all but one of Annan’s efforts - well one went over the top. Greig, Anderson and Gethins sunk theirs and united prepare to face Motherwell.

Match report by Colin Keenan