Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Shearer (GK)		51 apps	-
Craig McKeown		49 apps	10 goals
Graham Hay		20 apps	4 goals
Stephen Jeffrey		31 apps	1 goal
Stuart Smith		48 apps	1 goal
Stuart Anderson		33 apps	7 goals
Neil McVitie		42 apps	8 goals
Hamish Munro		45 apps	1 goal
Paul Napier		37 apps	4 goals
Cammy Keith		50 apps	38 goals
Marek Madle		17 apps	9 goals
Calum Dingwall (sub)		23 apps	2 goals
Callum Bagshaw (sub)		42 apps	3 goals
Stuart McKay (sub)		48 apps	16 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

Turriff’s thirteenth win on the bounce leaves Formartine’s increasingly forlorn hopes of a title challenge fading faster than a pair of stonewashed denims. Although the game overall was a fairly close run thing and Formartine mounted a spirited fight over the last 15 minutes or so, Turriff merited their victory with a highly committed yet disciplined performance. They did enough, often enough and for long enough at a time to prevent their visitors from developing rhythm and momentum. It would be going too far to slight Formartine for lack of will and appetite but Turriff did impose themselves right from the outset and Formartine were forced well onto the back foot for the first twenty minutes or so and for some periods thereafter, were simply chasing a game which was controlled by the home side.

Formartine were rocked and rattled by the ferocity of Turra’s opening salvos where they ran in numbers at the Formartine rearguard and slung the ball slickly around the penalty area laying siege to the goalmouth. With the exception of a dart down the right straight from the kick off by Napier, the ball never really left Formartine’s half until it was in the back of their net. Sadly for them this happened as early as the 4th minute and to add insult to injury, the scorer was former Formartine full back, Stuart Cumming. The ball was slung over from near the right corner flag by McKenna and rebounded from the top of the cross bar to a position just inside the bye-line about twelve yards beyond the left post. Beagrie clipped it diagonally back into the area where Cumming, utterly unencumbered by anything resembling a marker, stravaiged into the box and headed the ball home. Keeper Shearer made an unconvincing move towards the ball that was well beyond his reach anyway and in the process simplified CUMMING’s task. It was a poor goal to lose and the timing of it went a long way towards enhancing home confidence while doing little for that of the keeper.

Formartine tried to get a grip of the game but it seemed more as if they were trying to grasp a bar of soap in a hot bath and Turriff continued to call the shots. Allan and MacAskill combined down the left and from the left edge of the box the former let fly with a fierce drive that McKeown did well to block at the cost of a corner. Formartine were struggling to cope with the pace and energy of the Turriff momentum. When Formartine defenders had possession of the ball they quickly found Baigrie, MacAskill or McGowan snapping at their ankles and if they elected to pump the ball up the park, they found that the home back four had developed a high enough line to simply thump the ball straight back into the danger area.

Somehow, however, Formartine weathered the storm and by the midpoint of the first period were beginning to make some impression and Anderson began to grow in influence and played in Madle twice and Keith once [all three shots were blocked by Turriff defenders]before clipping a dipping shot for Main to pull down from under the cross bar. By the half hour mark, things were much more even in terms of possession and territory although Turriff off the ball movement seemed a bit slicker than Formartine’s.

Formartine came nearer to levelling when a run across the 18 yard area by Madle earned him enough space to feed McVitie who struck a hard low drive that Main did well to touch round the corner for an unrewarded corner. As half time approached, Formartine were giving as good as they got and were able at times to advance defenders to support their attack. Stuart Smith had a pop from about twenty yards out and although it was firmly and accurately struck, Main had little difficulty in taking the ball cleanly.

The second spell began with Formartine continuing to push as Turriff seemed to want to play from deeper. Their policy was no longer that of all out attack or, if it were, Formartine were making a better fist of imposing themselves on the game. Turriff however, when they did mount an attack did so very directly and with pace and precision. This was in contrast to Formartine pressure which tended to end outside the danger area when Madle or Keith would find themselves crowded out by a number of hard working and well drilled defenders or midfielders with Cumming, Bowden and Kuznecovs impressing with their work rate and reading of the game. Formartine were going through a pretty decent spell around the hour mark as McVitie and Anderson each had half chances cleared by last ditch efforts from Davidson and Allan before a swift, vicious Turriff counter attack did more damage than they could recover from. A headed clearance by Bowden set up DAVIDSON for a break down the inside right lane. After an exchange of passes with sub Herd he let fly with a low right to left shot that scorched past the right hand of the diving Shearer and into the far corner of the net.

With just under 30 minutes left Formartine were faced with a severely uphill task and to be fair to them, they did their best to rise to the challenge. They pushed forward in numbers but were still finding the massed ranks of Turra bodies around the box very difficult to penetrate and in their pressure they still had to be careful because they were painfully aware of the potency of Turra on the break. However they made an impression in the 65th minute when full back Jeffrey on the back of a spirited charge down the right, followed up his own ball into the box and slammed it home from about 8 yards out to provide a bit of a lifeline.

Formartine were now going hell for leather to get something out of the game and pretty close to doing that they came. A move down the right by Napier set up the tenacious McVitie for a tight angled drive from the right. Main got just enough of a finger tip onto the ball to divert it round the post for a corner from which the pressure was sustained and with the ball never more than a yard or two from the goal line there was a period of pandemonium. With Allan on the ground, the ball struck his arm markedly enough to interfere with Formartine attacking momentum but not enough to convince a parsimonious referee to award a penalty.

Formartine pressure persisted and they had a couple of incisive Turriff breakaways to dismantle too, but try as they might there was no way that they were going to prise anything more from Turriff’s vice like grip on the points.

Turriff cannot be begrudged the points, they were better than Formartine for longer than Formartine were better than they were. They did not seem to have any standout players but the standard of organisation and work rate, particularly off the ball was impressive. Were it not for the Brora steamroller, Turriff’s sustained run of 13 wins in a row would look like championship winning form. If Formartine are to finish above them, they will need to improve.

Match report by Colin Keenan