Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		6 apps	-
Scott Henry		7 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		79 apps	5 goals
Stuart Smith		118 apps	10 goals
Stuart Anderson		95 apps	23 goals
Paul Lawson		40 apps	13 goals
Neil McVitie		77 apps	14 goals
Graeme Rodger		51 apps	16 goals
Scott Barbour		46 apps	18 goals
Neil Gauld		47 apps	29 goals
Conor Gethins		8 apps	6 goals
Max Berton (sub)		18 apps	1 goal
Garry Wood (sub)		48 apps	30 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

It is never safe to assume that a side who are regularly defeated are easy to beat. The fact that the season is only five games old and there is only one team left on full points underlines the fiercely competitive nature of this league and shows that no team can be assumed to be easy meat. This young Fort William outfit proved that pointless may they yet be, they were capable of making Formartine fight every inch of the way for the three points they needed to maintain their active challenge at the top end of the table. Each, they say to his own, and in this case the contrast in team formations was stark: United went with their usual two banks of four in 4-4-2 style while Fort made no bones about putting 8 behind the ball leaving only a single link to a lone striker. For all United are carefully drilled in theirs, it was just as apparent that the visitors were equally versed in their soak it up and hit on the break line up. And sure as God made little apples it worked for them.

United opened with a push down the right that yielded a corner taken by Barbour. He found Smith well placed at the back post but the full back’s angled header just finished on the wrong side of the far post and Fort had possession in the form of a goal kick which precipitated a surge down the left as the defensive eight swarmed up the park. MacLellan orchestrated the move and finished his personal contribution to it with an early cross to the rangy (and far more importantly) unmarked DAVIDSON whose powerful header from the edge of the six yard box soared into the net to establish a 2nd minute lead that he and his colleagues retained for more than half an hour. It had given them just enough confidence to believe that far from facing a trouncing, they might just cause United further embarrassment. Sticking to the game plan, their rearguard of eight proved remarkably difficult to break down and were canny enough to know when and when not to break out of that mode and when they did so they had pace and height to help them.

Formartine had little real choice beyond pressing forward and hammering away at the tightly packed defence. In the 8th minute sustained pressure yielded a Rodger shot from the edge of the box that was blocked on the penalty spot by Tawse before the ball landed for Gauld whose snap shot through a densely populated six yard area rebounded off Moffat before being booted to safety. There was a fair deal of this sort of onslaught but United were denied any real cuttance by the aerial route as their strike force of Gauld and Gethins simply lacked the altitude to compete overhead with the significantly taller visiting defenders.

Fort’s counterpunching tactics were making life difficult for United as a 9th minute counter from Will allowed him to advance relatively unimpeded by anything approaching a significant midfield tackle until he was in position to off-load a 25 yard drive that went just over the top. These breaks were not without menace and despite an Anderson header and a Rodger drive going close and a cute angled shot from Gauld being blocked at the base of the front post by Mainland, the Fort defence in numbers was holding out, grimly at times, but nevertheless effectively.

A 22nd minute break started by Tot was completed by the same player who had advanced all the way with it, and off-loaded a fierce drive just over the bar from a few yards shy of the box. Again United pressed on and pinned back Fort but still nothing really yielded: a cute move initiated by Lawson brought in McVitie to set up Barbour whose volley went wide . Continued pressure produced a few corners: one in the 29th reached Smith with a bit of a chance but the header was wide but another, four minutes later, did the trick: Barbour took it and delivered the ball to ANDERSON who was lurking at the edge of the box. Dropping his left shoulder, he caught the ball on the volley and dispatched it right footed and skirling like a banshee, straight to the back of the net to equalise.

The punch and counter punch pattern continued until the interval and the more it went on the clearer it became just how much of a problem the pace of MacLellan was causing United when Fort broke forward. He had the legs on the home defenders and in the 41st minute he outstripped his markers and got in a shot that Dingwall managed to block at the cost of an unrewarded corner. A couple of minutes later, McVitie almost despairingly, was reduced to hacking him down as he ran towards the box. A yellow card ensued. Pressure following the free kick was eventually relieved when Porrit’s finish to the move went just over the top.

Honours even between United and Fort William at half time although unexpected was nevertheless a just indication of what the two sides at that point deserved.

Confidence was clearly going to be high in the Fort ranks and they started the second period brightly when MacLellan again outstripping his markers, scorched off down the right before whipping the ball across the area where Davidson just failed by a millimetre or so to make the connection that would certainly have put his side back in front. A minute later Fort were on the offensive again. This time it was Tot who was the architect of a move that ended after his cross from the right reached Davidson whose shot rebounded from the base of the near post. They were up for it and few would argue that they were unlucky not to be ahead at that point.

United quickly took the wind from the visitors’ sails with their first sustained attack of the half. In the 49th minute, Gauld was fouled by Tawse – about 25 yards out. GETHINS took the free kick and leathered an absolute screamer beyond the reach of Rose’s outstretched right hand and high into the net to establish a lead that his side never surrendered for the rest of the game. Fort continued to battle on but United were beginning to impose their shape and tempo on the game and got a better pattern in the middle as Rodger started to pull a few strings. In the 50th minute he cooly rolled the ball to Anderson whose drive was blocked by the feet of Rose – his first real save of the game. A minute later he fed McVitie who was overlapping down his right. “Biscuits” played a good early ball into the goal area but there were no takers.

In the 55th minute Wood replaced Gauld and ten minutes later Berton replaced Gethins and a more strongly defined pattern up front was created and imposed. The powerful Wood ran directly at defenders or held up the ball for others to feed off him and despite the still dogged eight man rearguard, United’s attack attained and retained a more identifiable shape. In the 68th minute again set up by Rodger, BARBOUR was able to break into the box. Rose advanced to close down the angles but the forward kept his cool and with perfect timing and absolute precision cooly slid the ball past the keeper and into the net for the crucial third goal.

In the 75th minute an Anderson, Berton, Wood combination almost bore fruit when Wood’s finishing header scraped just over the top. A McVitie, Rodger, Barbour move went almost as close when the last named drove the ball into the side netting from a tight angle.

Fort were not yet finished and again it was MacLellan who caused the problem. With another pacy break he got enough of an edge to whip a ball across the 6 yard box. It rebounded from Henry who attempting to clear caused the ball to rebound into his own net for 3-2. With 12 minutes still to go and these superfast and unpredictable breaks the game was far from over. In the 82nd it was Davidson’s turn to show his pace when he outstripped defenders to get a decent sight of goal from around 15 yards out. His finishing effort was well off target and United breathed a little easier.

They breathed a proper sigh of relief in the 85th when RODGER capped off his fine afternoon’s work when he drove home a Barbour feed from a silky pass down the left from Lawson. The fact that it took until the 85th minute for United to put the final nail in Fort’s coffin says a lot. Fort are a young team who look full of promise. They have a system that works well for them and they have some players with real pace. United struggled at times but without reaching anything like their full potential, ground out the result they needed.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

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