Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Reid (GK)		4 apps	-
Craig McKeown		55 apps	11 goals
Jamie Michie		4 apps	-
Johnny Crawford		5 apps	-
Stuart Smith		73 apps	2 goals
Stuart Anderson		58 apps	10 goals
Graeme Rodger		5 apps	2 goals
Paul Lawson		5 apps	1 goal
Scott Barbour		5 apps	1 goal
Cammy Keith		71 apps	52 goals
Garry Wood		5 apps	4 goals
Sam French (sub)		11 apps	9 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

It took no more than two or three minutes for the gulf in class between the two sides to become clear. During that time Formartine had dispossessed Vale of the ball, ensconced themselves in the home penalty area and mounted a siege that yielded a couple of shots on target – one fisted away by Fyfe and the other scrambled clear by the combined efforts of Fraser and Rennie. This opening salvo was interrupted rather than ended by a home goal kick after a fierce McKeown drive had scorched past the keeper’s left upright. The goal kick reached Formartine territory before being returned very slickly indeed whence it had been delivered. Formartine were, quite simply, all over them: they were visibly superior in terms of tempo, work-rate, appetite, and organisation. This situation persisted virtually unabated and shots rained in on the Vale goal. Gary Wood and Cammy Keith were feeding off a range of balls played into them mostly from wide and although each went close with vicious and often unchallenged headers they were finding the target hard to find. Each was well served by crosses from Barbour, Michie, Rodger, Lawson and Smith, but the Vale goal, partly due to a couple of decent stops by Fyfe lived at this point, a rather charmed life.

The encounter was almost embarrassingly one sided –embarrassing for Vale in terms of their tactical naiveté in allowing their visitors so much space on the flanks and persistent deficiencies in marking an admittedly very mobile Formartine frontline and midfield, but beginning to get just a tad embarrassing too for the time it was taking Formartine to get the ball into the net.

After over fifteen minutes of this Formartine composure in sight of goal began to fade and both Wood who missed a virtually open goal from about six yards beyond the back stick and Cammy Keith who managed to put the ball over the bar from about a yard off the goal line. They needed a goal to settle them but perversely this very nearly came Vale’s way in the 19th as the 6’10” Miller [the tallest pro footballer in the UK apparently] almost completed a central route 1 job with a low drive from twenty yards out that Andy Reid got down smartly to beat round his right upright for Vale’s first and only corner of the first half – yes, it really was that one sided.

The ball was smuggled back up the pitch and the bombardment resumed with increasing pressure and something had to give. After Wood had rattled the cross bar with fierce header off a Barbour cross, Rodger found Cammy Keith in the six yard box. Despite being well surrounded he held the ball until he found a chink through which to poke it right to strike partner WOOD who muscled his way through defenders to bundle it into the net at the back stick.

The dam was breached and that first little leak quickly became a torrent as Formartine, palpably relieved to have opened their account, quickly extended their lead. In the 33rd minute, from their 9th corner, Lawson’s perfectly flighted delivery caught McKEOWN’s perfectly timed run a yard or two past the back post and the big defender crashed an unstoppable header between keeper and post for number two. Formartine pressure increased in the sense that they now had the belief that they were going to score. The next corner, two or three minutes later and also from the left, found the head of Cammy Keith whose header rebounded from the cross bar into the arms of a relieved Rhys Fyfe.

But there was time for one more before the interval and as sure as God made little apples if there are goals to be had Cammy is going to be in on the act. Formartine pressure was utterly incessant and Vale’s attempts at attack were now as frequent and fertile as droppings from a rocking horse. With more action in the Vale goalmouth than anywhere else on the park the corner count mounted and from the 12th, Cammy KEITH started his hat trick in the 39th minute with a header from a corner. Again the ball hit the cross bar, but this time it found the underside of it and hit ground well into the net side of the line.

With a three goal lead at the interval the only chink in Formartine’s formidable array of power was found over the opening ten minutes or thereby of the second half when although it could never be described as evenly matched or anything approaching it, Vale had quite a bit more of the ball than they had in the first and Formartine seemed to content to play it about competently, skilfully at times, but without quite the pace and penetration they had shown before the interval. Vale managed to play in the midfield a wee bit and there was just a ghost of a chance that if they got one back, they might go on to make a game of it.
Formartine were still pretty well in charge and a classy move by Crawford to promote Michie down the right was completed when the latter’s very precisely delivered diagonal ball found the head of Keith whose flashing header left to right across goal ended just wide of the far post. A touch of miscommunication between Rodger and Anderson in midfield allowed Leslie to pinch the ball and feed it forward down the middle to Miller. Bearing in on goal and marked by McKeown he got into the area. In the tussle between the two the striker’s attempt to get in the shot came off McKeown and flew into the net. Some would call it an own goal, others would credit the striker. The jury on that attribution remains out, but it gave Vale a goal and caused Formartine to change up a gear or two.

From that point, on the hour mark, Formartine were utterly unstoppable [at least by that Vale side] and it took them only three minutes to restore their three goal cushion. A right battering of the home goal mouth when an Anderson drive was beaten hastily away but landed well for Barbour whose measured attempt on goal was well read by Fyfe who managed to get just enough on the ball to deflect it from its net bound flight. All this did was to give it to KEITH who unceremoniously banged the ball beyond the still prone keeper for the fourth.

Three more nightmare minutes for Vale as a by now utterly ruthless Formartine battered them from pillar to post and they gained a penalty – softish as they go, but a penalty nonetheless. Barbour was breaking into the box with only Fraser between him and the keeper. The wily forward showed the defender just enough of the ball to draw the tackle as he jinked to the right and the defender had essentially to bring him down to complete the tackle. WOOD drilled the ball low and very hard into the left corner for number five.

The game was long done as a contest and Formartine resisting any temptation to show boat simply continued their demolition job. Cammy KEITH completed his hat trick in the 77th with a slick finish to a well worked goal. Michie and sub McVitie one two-ed their way down the left before the latter whipped the ball into the box and into the path of the striker’s diagonal run. From around twelve yards out he drilled the ball past the keeper This completed not only the hat trick but was also his 250th in senior football. Some achievement.

There were still two more goals to come. Scott BARBOUR got his first for the club with a neatly taken close range finish, clipping the ball past the keeper’s reach from six yards out. To get there he had darted past two defenders with a superbly timed run. It may have been the team’s 8th but it was his first and he celebrated in style. Two minutes later he almost got another after he picked up the product of slick play between subs French and McVitie and slammed the ball barely an inch the wrong side of the keeper’s left upright.

FRENCH completed the rout in stoppage time: McVitie had been harrying the keeper and did enough to get just enough onto the ball for it to birl over to the sub who knocked it cleanly home from close-ish range.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie