Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		12 apps	-
Shane Jamieson		13 apps	1 goal
Jamie Michie		36 apps	-
Calum Dingwall		92 apps	6 goals
Stuart Smith		128 apps	11 goals
Stuart Anderson		110 apps	25 goals
Graeme Rodger		66 apps	23 goals
Derek Young		12 apps	2 goals
Scott Barbour		61 apps	28 goals
Scott Ferries		11 apps	1 goal
Neil Gauld		55 apps	32 goals
Jamie Masson (sub)		39 apps	7 goals
Max Berton (sub)		30 apps	2 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		15 apps	6 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This game began with Buckie leading the league and Formartine in fourth place. Had Formartine been able to overcome their hosts the gap between the two would have closed to a single point and Buckie with a game in hand. Their failure to achieve that leaves them still in fourth but now seven points adrift and Buckie still with their game in hand. For the neutral it was a cracking game of football albeit one that eventually vindicated the relative positions of the contestants. Formartine did well in the first half and with more clinical finishing might well have reached the turn ahead, but Buckie showed something that champions have: the capacity to overcome adversity, change up a gear or two and go on to win. That, in a nutshell, was the difference between the two.

Formartine have not had their injury problems to seek - particularly in a defence that has lost for varying lengths of time Crawford, McKeown, McVitie, Wood and Henry and this enforced inability to develop a settled back four has cost them thus far 26 league goals which is precisely twice as many as Buckie have. You simply can’t lose five out of your back four and not leak goals.

However the game began with an early and serious defensive error by Buckie. Formartine had the better of the opening exchanges and within a minute a Dingwall cross was headed loopily beyond the keeper but a foot or so over the top by Anderson. United were prepared to advance their full backs down the flanks and in the 4th minute a swift break down the right by Michie was completed with a hard driven, cross towards the back post area. Salmon leapt, clutched the ball then promptly dropped it. FERRIES was quickest to react but still had a bit to do before despatching it into the net. His back was towards goal as he reached the ball. Shimmying left beyond the back stick, he took the ball away from Cheyne and almost to the goal line before cutting back in to get enough of an angle to whip it into the net from about 5 yards out.

United could not have hoped for a better start and put it to as good use as could reasonably have been expected. They were quick to the ball-spread it well to the flanks from where decent supply from Rodger, Anderson and Ferries to a pacy front pair of Gauld and Barbour gave them a stronger and more regular presence in the Buckie final third than Buckie could muster in theirs. They weren’t quite dictating shape and tempo but weren’t far short of it either. United attacks were sustained for several phases whereas most of Buckie’s took the form of single breaks, but impressive start or not, United really needed another goal to make their mark. In the 19th minute Gauld broke through at pace down the inside right channel and whipped over a cross perfectly accurate in aim and timing, straight to Barbour on the front edge of the box. The striker wheeled and made good contact with the ball but was unable to keep it down adequately and the chance went as the ball drifted over the junction of the keeper’s left upright the cross bar. A minute later a peach of a shot on the turn by Rodger went even closer.

The loss of those chances was swiftly regretted in the next minute or two. A mistimed tackle by Dingwall on Fraser a few yards in from the right edge and forty yards out yielded a free kick that the victim took himself. It was a fairly conventional floated ball over to the assembled ranks waiting for it about ten yards off the back post. ANGUS out-jumped the defence and headed the ball over the advancing MacDonald into the other side of goal.

There was still half of the first period to play and despite this reverse in their fortunes, Formartine remained in terms of possession and territory, the dominant force. Within a couple of minutes United gained a free kick in a fairly central position about 35 yards out. Anderson’s effort beat the wall but curled past the keeper’s left upright. Ten minutes, later another from a roughly similar position was clipped in by Barbour but met the same fate and a rather concerning pattern was emerging: United could still get slightly the better of exchanges in the box to box business but on the back of less possession, Buckie could deliver more shots on target. Overall, United still shaded the first half.

Whatever took place in the respective dressing rooms over the interval is privy only to those present but the results were almost immediately apparent to those who weren’t as Buckie emerged with such a spring in their steps that they had United rocking right from the start. The pace of Macleod and Urquhart was exploited as the two made parallel runs into the box, but it was a trademark marauding run down the right by former Formartine utility man “Squish” Munro that set up the crucial second goal. His looping cross to ANGUS about 20 yards out was taken on the volley at knee height, cracked thunderously off the underside of the bar and into the net for an absolutely spectacular finish. United had been forced from the driving seat and Thistle were now in control and on their way to victory.

Cashing in on the visitors’ deflation, they took only a couple more minutes to double their lead. Buckie were rampant and sustaining a torrid offensive. In the 53rd minute McLeod with searing pace got away from the close attentions of Smith and immediately cut in from right to centre heading for goal. As keeper MacDonald moved to close him down he fired the ball with clinical precision and into the net from fifteen yards.

There was still well over half an hour for United to get back on top but they had last a momentum they were never able to regain. Buckie had moved up a gear and United had no means of matching it. For the next fifteen minutes or so they tried all they knew. Subs came on in the form of Gethins, Berton and Masson and in a last throw of the dice, they tried three up top. Buckie took it all in their stride and played in bursts of controlled aggression and although Formartine did well enough to hold the arrears to two goals, they never looked like getting back on terms against a side that, over the piece, was more than their match.

Perhaps the squad that started the season and looked so promising before injuries kicked in might have fared better but on the evidence of this game, there was, overall, a difference in standard between the two. Given the capitulation visible in the latter part of the game when United ended up looking like a team who knew and accepted that they were beaten and were just going through the motions until the final whistle, there has to be some concern about appetite and motivation. They didn’t look hungry enough to become champions; Buckie did.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie