Appearances & Goals To Date

Andy Shearer (GK)		39 apps	-
Craig McKeown		36 apps	9 goals
Craig Duguid		5 apps	-
Graham Hay		8 apps	-
Stuart Smith		36 apps	1 goal
Stuart Anderson		20 apps	5 goals
Gary Clark		25 apps	1 goal
Neil McVitie		31 apps	4 goals
Hamish Munro		33 apps	1 goal
Cammy Keith		37 apps	30 goals
Sam French		5 apps	5 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

The importance of this result cannot be understated: as far as SHFL is concerned it proves that Brora are not invincible and when subject to some well- judged and skilfully applied pressure, can be made to look as vulnerable as the rest and for Formartine it provides clear evidence that when the mood is upon them, they are a potent force, capable of challenging at the very top of this grade of football.

Brora started this game on the back of 5 wins out of 5, scoring 28 goals without a single concession in the process. At that point they seemed unbeatable: now they look anything but. The widespread fear that they could complete the season with a 100% record was blown away by a Formartine side that refused to be intimidated and set out to have a proper go at them in their own back yard.
Formartine’s starting line- up had a distinctly bespoke look to it. Left back Stuart Smith was moved sideways to partner Hay in the middle, the tigerish midfield ball winner, Clark made his first start of the season allowing Munro to assume a defensive role. McKeown was deployed to the left of midfield. Jeffrey and the pacy, in-form Napier failed late fitness tests, but Anderson returned from injury, was on from the start. This set up seemed to be in part a studied attempt to neutralise Brora strengths and in part resource driven. Whatever it was it worked well.

Formartine were smartly out of the traps and set about attacking their hosts with pace and a bit of verve. Two minutes in, French got the ball in the inside left channel and ran directly at Tokely with it, causing enough discomfiture for the defender to hastily concede a corner. A minute later a move down the left flank started by Duguid was completed by Anderson whipping the ball into the box and Cammy Keith getting enough cuttance out of Grant Munro to get in a header that flew just high and wide to the right. Brora’s response was direct and dangerous: Sutherland, from quite a deep position on the right flighted the ball perfectly for Steven MacKay’s run through inside left to head the ball just as close as Keith had done at the other end. Minutes later the same Sutherland made just enough space to get in a quick 20 yarder but Shearer had it covered all the way and took the ball comfortably enough.

A pattern was emerging and that derived from Formartine using the entire width of the Dudgeon and using their spearhead pair of French and Keith to worry at a home defence with Tokely and Munro at its heart. In their day, farm horses were normally deployed in pairs and the former Caley Thistle veterans who narrowly post-date the development of tractors, were both agricultural in approach and equine in demeanour. Tokely in particular was prepared to use fair means mostly and foul more than occasionally, particularly on Anderson and French who did enough to expose some of his limitations. Formartine were, in what was still a very closely contested affair, beginning to shade it terms of possession and territory.

The ball seldom penetrated the inner sanctum of either penalty area and when it did, defences were able somehow to work it to a safer place. In the 30th minute, following a period of sustained Formartine pressure where they managed to work the ball around the home box with enough vigour and threat to keep the home side pinned back. A sweeping ball emerged from a clump of players near the right corner of the box and cut back for the advancing McKeown. For a big man he has surprisingly quick feet, and as he weaved his way into the box, managed to wrong foot MacLean who had moved out to close him down. MacLean’s only way back from that was to offer a sort of body check (nothing too outlandish really, but certainly rash and illegal) and the penalty was given.

Cammy KEITH took it driving the ball low to Malin’s left as the keeper dived right. Formartine were worth their single goal lead and held it until the interval. They continued with their high energy approach with real persistence in the ball winning department by McVitie and Clark. Brora’s Greig is noted for exceptional pace but remarkably it didn’t quite match that of Duguid who was marking him very effectively indeed. The visiting rearguard marshalled by the uber-reliable Hay gave little away and Formartine continued ever so slightly to shade the first half although Brora, well aware of the psychological advantage of scoring just before the interval, mounted some sustained waves of attack in the dying minutes of the half. Gillespie and MacKay both got in shots but they were from long enough range to come into the hopeful more than the dangerous category as they flew safely wide and high of target.

The second half so an initially almost imperceptible shift to Brora’s favour. Clearly digging deep and using to the full a strange reluctance by ref Milne to curb some rather venomous stuff in places, they set about clawing their way forward. By and large Formartine were fit for this even if they were fighting increasingly from the back foot. The result was that much, but by no means all of the action was conducted in the area between half way and Formartine’s final third. Mostly a rearguard of Hay, Smith, Munro and Duguid supplemented by withdrawing midfielders, coped well. If there was deficiency it was not so much in the purely defensive aspects as in the quality of distribution of the balls they retrieved from Brora attacks. They were also astute enough to make several telling breaks. One or two of these lead to sustained periods of pressure on Brora. French and Anderson continued to stretch the ageing defenders but generally the balance was in Brora’s favour. One Formartine break saw French go down in the box a yard or two right of goal but he was adjudged to have simulated a foul and booked for his pains. At the other end two shots by Sutherland both wide, one ludicrously so and a couple of crosses that almost but not quite found their intended recipient in Mackay were, until the 71st minute, the sum of Brora’s reward for their attacking efforts.

Their equaliser was a bit of a route one job. A long clearance reached MacKay who clipped the ball astutely into the path of GILLESPIE arriving to his left. From just inside the box and fairly central, the midfielder leathered the ball beyond the reach of the diving Shearer. Brora now had belief and impetus and committed themselves to retrieving their 100% record with all- out attack. Formartine weathered the storm and responded by brining on fresh legs to replace those of their tiring strike force. Madle and Dingwall are fast and direct and with Brora committed to attack they exploited the space at the back and make a couple of exciting counter attacks. One ended in Dingwall’s shot after a partial clearance from a Madle breakaway, being gathered by the keeper and the other again following a rapid breakaway just being deflected by Williamson for an unrewarded corner.

Brora’s best chance of a winner came from a near last minute 20 yard drive from Greig being superbly touched over to safety by Shearer. A draw seems fair: either side could have won it but Formartine have now set themselves a standard to which their supporters will be very eager to hold them.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie