Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		15 apps	-
Shane Jamieson		17 apps	2 goals
Calum Dingwall		96 apps	7 goals
Jamie Michie		40 apps	-
Stuart Smith		132 apps	11 goals
Stuart Anderson		114 apps	26 goals
Jamie Masson		43 apps	8 goals
Graeme Rodger		70 apps	23 goals
Scott Barbour		65 apps	31 goals
Scott Ferries		13 apps	1 goal
Neil Gauld		58 apps	32 goals
Max Berton (sub)		32 apps	2 goals
Conor Gethins (sub)		19 apps	12 goals
Garry Wood (sub)		60 apps	38 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This was one of those games where each side got the least they could reasonably have expected from it yet neither got as much as they had hoped. For United the expectation was nothing short of victory and three points; but the hope would be to achieve this by a biggish margin and to do so in some style. They achieved the expectation, but not the hope. For Thistle the bottom line had to be avoiding a high score-line hammering and the hope would be to get at least a point. They too achieved the first part but not the second.

Formartine have never dropped a point home or away to Strathspey and as recently as the final game of last season, put ten goals (8 of them from Neil Gauld) past them. Despite the slender margin of victory recorded in this scoreline, there was still a clearly identifiable difference in class between the two sides. However, you can’t take it away from them: the Grantown side are definitely an improving one. They have learned how to defend in depth, sustain it for significant periods and frustrate their opponents. It is nothing as crude as stopping better sides playing by any available means but if there are times when if it seems safer for them to get 8 or 9 bodies behind the ball and keep them there for as long as they think they need, they won’t balk at doing so.

Predictably, Formartine were the first to show with an attacking run down the right flank by wing back Michie. Skipping neatly past Cairns he made space from which to clip across a tempting ball towards the penalty spot where Rodger got an attacking boot to it at the same time as McShane got a defensive one and the ball spun away to safety. On the other side, a move started by Smith and Dingwall brought Barbour into play near the left corner of the penalty area and although he did the hard work in wrong footing Finnis to get a sight of goal, the finish was snatched and not cleanly struck before bobbling its way past McCallum’s right upright.

Initially at least Thistle were up to have a go at United and the impressively named Ferdinando-Soto (Zola to the bench and his team mates) along with MacLeod made a fair few speedy incursions into United territory. These seldom if ever got into danger areas – the back four of Michie, Dingwall, Smith and Jamieson were steady throughout and the central two have a fair bit of muscle to match their shrewd reading of the game. Twice “Zola” got on the end of longish balls out of defence but the first time Smith saw what was on and rained on the forward’s parade with a crunching tackle before ten minutes or so later Jameson did much the same.

Formartine had by far the bulk of possession and the ball was confined to Thistle territory for sustained periods. In the 18th minute Anderson who generally patrolled a beat just outside the visiting area picking up balls from defence and recycling them back into the mix in more dangerous areas, latched onto a hemipygic clearance by Fraser and chipped it over to Barbour who was denied a neat opener when the ball was nudged onto the base of the left post and eventually to safety.

A pattern was emerging: United would hammer away in and around the Strathspey box but with the visitors’ two banks of four morphing into an eight man guard in front of the keeper, space was at a premium and you could see Formartine beginning to get frustrated. It would be unfair to say they were running out of ideas – there’s not an awful lot you can do against that density of defending but the Speysiders were managing to achieve what they had set out to do and the evidence of increasing Formartine frustration was shown in a series of shots struck from around twenty/twenty five yards out by Anderson, Masson, Gauld, Michie, Rodger, Barbour and Ferries. None of these made the keeper do anything and each seemed to be delivered more in hope than expectation.

A break by Scott and Mackay on the back of a goal kick eased the congestion for a while. Smith and Jamieson broke up the attack a good thirty yards out and the former slipped the ball forward left to Dingwall who made rapid progress down the flank. A quick exchange of passes with Anderson set him up for a chance in a less crowded penalty area. From just off the left corner of the box he cracked a thumping low drive that McCallum parried but could not hold down at the base of his right upright. Following up on his initial effort, DINGWALL was onto the rebound in a flash and lashed the ball into the net for the goal the game in general, and his team in particular, sorely needed. It had taken them 35 minutes to get there but the effect of the goal was to release a lot of the frustration that had been building in the Formartine ranks and their play now seemed to look more confident. They played the ball wide with Michie, Smith, Barbour and sometimes Manson, Rodger and Gauld making moves in the wide areas, they managed to stretch Thistle a bit more than they had previously, but the visitors held out, perhaps a little less comfortably, at only one goal adrift, until the interval.

Thereafter Thistle resumed or even intensified their defensive set up. How much of this was an intended strategy and how much a result of United pressure, cannot be accurately determined but for most of the second half when United had possession (and that was most of time) they had only one player left up top and nine behind the ball. United had little option but to batter away at a team who looked as if their intent was to protect their single goal deficit. After 10 minutes of banging about in and around an over-crowded penalty box the canny Anderson, prised open the defensive lock with a decisive second. A corner on the right was played deep by Masson and from a point beyond the back post and only a step or two short of the goal line, Gauld pinged a perfectly judged low ball across the goal face to ANDERSON who had nipped in at the back stick to force it home from close range.

It looked briefly that Thistle would fade rapidly after this reverse and a minute later United had the ball in the net again. A foul on Gauld a couple of yards short of the box yielded a free kick that Anderson elegantly struck beyond the wall. It looked goal bound all the way until Gauld, over-anxious tae “mak siccar” interfered with play to assist the ball’s passage to the net. All this yielded was an off -side decision whereas inaction from his initial position might very well have left the goal to stand.

Thus relieved, Thistle resumed their deeply defensive posture and United’s frustration grew commensurately. Things continued this way until with three minutes left, SCOTT got on the end of a sudden big clearance and broke through the middle. As Macdonald was about to meet him a few yards out of the box, the forward tried a shot. The keeper was close enough to block the ball which rebounded off him and then back off the forward and, agonisingly for the keeper, into the net. Scott will doubtless claim the goal - it wasn’t an own goal by the keeper either- but in situations like that, the ball generally spins away to anywhere other than the goal. But, hey ho, they all count.

Match report by Colin Keenan

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