Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		47 apps	-
Craig McKeown		74 apps	15 goals
Johnny Crawford		80 apps	5 goals
Scott Henry		33 apps	2 goals
Stuart Smith		178 apps	15 goals
Wayne Mackintosh		19 apps	3 goals
Stuart Anderson		156 apps	28 goals
Graeme Rodger		118 apps	35 goals
Archie MacPhee		26 apps	22 goals
Scott Barbour		112 apps	50 goals
Garry Wood		88 apps	48 goals
Jevan Anderson (sub)		17 apps	-
Andrew Greig (sub)		3 apps	1 goal
Scott Ferries (sub)		53 apps	6 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

This was one of the few games (all of them in the Moray Firth area) that beat the icy conditions throughout the rest of the SHFL. The price to pay was that the pitch, although perfectly safe enough, was heavily sanded in some places and bobbly in others making high tempo quick passing football something of a lottery. Despite that Formartine produced a display of decent quality pass and move football that ensured the comfortable collection of all three points and were perhaps just a tad unfortunate not to have improved their goal difference balance by more than they did. Clach produced a doughty display of predominantly defensive play that did enough to frustrate United at times but never really amounted to a sustained threat. Interestingly they fielded as a trialist striker, the gargantuan Lukasz Geruzel, a man who on land occupies enough space to constitute a post code in his own right, and at sea can displace enough water to float a small navy. Either way he was shackled well enough by Craig McKeown and offered only limited and intermittent threat.

United began on the front foot and mounted their first attack down the left when Barbour picked up a through ball from Smith and got just enough space out of Mackintosh to get over a chipped cross to the near post area Wood and MacPhee were in close attendance but just beaten to the ball by Webb who booted clear. A minute later the action was at the other end when a drive from the left corner of the box by Smith was touched away by MacDonald for an unrewarded corner. There was a hint that this game might develop an end to end pattern but within five or ten minutes, it was clear that United, with the lions share of possession, were able to sustain periods of pressure and were beginning to call the shots. Instrumental in this was captain Stuart Anderson who, playing just in front of the back four, orchestrated the movement of and supply to attacking midfielders MacPhee and Rodger and the front pair of Barbour and Wood. His influence on the shape of play ahead of him was fundamental to Formartines dominance at the front and McKeowns organisational skills ensured pretty much the same further back. Clach were from an early stage pretty well chasing the game. United attacked: they defended (capably though) and when Clach did get forward, they tried to sustain some pressure but found the visiting defence in parsimonious mood.

United pressure mounted and shots rained in. Barbour, Mackintosh, Wood, Rodger and above all MacPhee got in shots. The last named managed three shots all from about 18 yard range, each on the turn and under pressure from defenders, in the space of five minutes. None were on target but none were very far off it either. It was a bit symptomatic of the way his game went – he made plenty of chances but it looked like the crucial wee bit of luck that stands between a barrowload and barren after noon was not there for him.

Capable though the Clach defending was, the pressure generated by United was high and rising and a breakthrough was inevitable. It came in the 26th minute. A corner from the left went through two or three phases without being fully cleared. Eventually the ball found its way to Wayne MACKINTOSH cannily lurking a few yards off the action looking for scraps. A step or two forward and he unloaded a fierce pile driver that skidded off the ground as the keeper dived to grab it at the base of his right upright. Initially he looked to have made the save but such was the force of the shot that MacLennan could not hold it, the ball squirmed from his grasp and trickled over the line into the net.

Following this, Clach had probably their best spell of the match – they did not really get on top of United but did enough to pressurise them into conceding a goal. They had a minute or so of sustained pressure and Smith and Geruzel both managed shots which were blocked more than cleared and in the midst of a stramash in the two three yards shy of the goal line, ROBERTSON managed to force the ball between MacDonald and his right upright into the net.

But that really was as good as it got for Clach, they were unable to sustain pressure after this. United, with Anderson at his imperious best, simply dominated midfield, kept the ball very well indeed and poked and probed for openings. Although Clach regularly had eight or more behind the ball, there was shape and form to their defending and United were made to work hard for openings in the final third. A thumping drive from Rodger brought an acrobatic save from MacLennan as he tipped the ball from the postage stamp corner to safety. United were offering threats from all areas. Crawford made a number of forays down the right and Smith did likewise on the left. These provided support in the wide areas for in particular Barbour and Rodger. United should really have extended their lead before the interval when Barbour crossed from the left with pin point accuracy to put the ball straight on top of MacPhees Peaky Blinders haircut. Unmarked, central and on the 6 yard line, he somehow managed to direct this free header a foot wide of the right post. It simply was not his day.

Despite having to rearrange their back four after half an hour when Henry injured his right knee and was replaced by young Jevan Anderson, United maintained their dominance from then on. They kept their backline around the halfway mark for most of the time and compressed the game largely into the home half. This was apparent right through the second half when the only real question was how many more goals would they get. It should have been more than two. MacPhees luck was well out and he was replaced by Greig but a mixture of poor finishing and inspired goal keeping kept the score within respectable limits. Rodger managed to hoik one over the top from no more than about 6 feet from the line – the ball had to travel further to miss than to go in. He was also denied by a low dive from MacLennan when a fierce fifteen yarder from left to right looked goalbound.

It took until the 68th minute for United to get their noses back in front. The pressure had been fairly relentless before Gary WOOD powered his way between Whitehead and MacKillop to ram the ball home from close range. This was preceded by a degree of possibly over elaborate play around the fringes of the box by Barbour, Rodger and Wood himself but the simple direct approach was the one that got the ball into the net.

Clach needed to get back into it, but Formartine simply would not let them. Maintaining possession and passing and moving as well as a bobbly surface allowed they kept up the pressure. They were home and dry in the 81st minute when Craig McKEOWN with his second goal in successive games crashed home a powerful, direct, downward 12 yard header from a cross on the right by Crawford.

There was more of the same until the end: Formartine continued to call the shots but Clach defended well enough to keep the scoreline as it was. In the circumstances this was a good win, it could have been more but the conditions underfoot were difficult and wins at Merkinch are never easily gained.

Match report by Colin Keenan