Appearances & Goals To Date

Kevin Main (GK)		45 apps	-
Craig McKeown		113 apps	19 goals
Johnny Crawford		128 apps	9 goals
Stuart Smith		232 apps	23 goals
Stuart Anderson		199 apps	33 goals
Graeme Rodger		179 apps	62 goals
Conor Gethins		103 apps	40 goals
Kieran Lawrence		54 apps	2 goals
Garry Wood		137 apps	70 goals
Archie MacPhee		82 apps	58 goals
Gary McGowan		1 app (debut)	-
Andrew Greig (sub)		58 apps	22 goals
Aaron Norris (sub)		27 apps	2 goals
Jordan Leydon (sub)		2 apps	-

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Gary McGowan

(Signed March 14th, 2019)

Milestones

This game was as one-sided as the story line suggests. Although the Lillywhites have had some fairly encouraging results of late with points shared with Locos, Huntly and a win over Buckie. They have a fairly small squad comprised for the most part of youngish players and were on the back foot in this game from first whistle to last. They worked hard enough in a damage limitation sort of way to hold the scoreline within the bounds of respectability and never relied on negativity to do so but against United in their own back yard and two goals adrift before five minutes had elapsed there was only going to be one winner. Formartine could and should have won by more than they did but having started in a fair full throttle way, seemed to take their metaphorical foot off the gas for better part of an hour after going 3-0 ahead in the 20th minute. The easing off was enough to prevent what really looked developing into a goal fest of Fort William like proportions without conceding enough to let the visitors get the encouragement of even a consolation goal.

The United side showed a few changes from the one that had beaten Brora the week before. New signing Gary McGowan made his debut and veteran striker Connor Gethins made a rare start while Aaron Norris and Andrew Greig dropped to the bench to accommodate. Jordan Leyden signed in a player swap with Ryan Stott was on the bench as was Jevan Anderson who missed out at Brora after a brief bout of illness. It is tempting to suggest that this might not be unrelated to management intentions for next season but the pragmatic imperatives of a run of more games, including the Cup Final than there are weeks left in the season to contain them point more in the direction of squad rotation and horses for courses.

United started with menacing intent. Within a minute, centre back McKeown had dispossessed the lanky Dunn and stormed through the middle deep into Clach territory to slip the ball left to McGowan who got it through a cluster of defenders to Wood who was eventually crowded out. The pressure was sustained and produced a corner on the left almost straight away. This was taken by McGowan and was hastily scrambled away by Webb at the cost of another corner. McGowan took this too and his in-swinger reached CRAWFORD at the back stick. The right back rose unmarked and headed home. There was wee stooshie of protest by Clach that the ball had failed to cross the line but it lacked both conviction and validity: all that had happened was that the keeper and Fraser had combined to clear the ball away from a yard or so over the line and claim disingenuously that the ref and linesman had called it wrong.

This second minute opener revealed defensive frailties in the visiting ranks and although it is always desirable to have a keeper capable of inspiring confidence, when he inspires it in opposing forwards, his team has problems. MacLennan had flapped at both corners and the Clach defenders were already heavily occupied by Wood, MacPhee, McGowan, Rodger and Gethins all of whom were causing problems and the game had barely begun. The pressure was ramped up with a second goal which came in the 4th minute. The ball was fed down the left by McKeown and Lawrence and onto McGowan who took out his marker, Fraser, with a shimmy and a turn, outmanoeuvered Webb and slipped the ball right to play in WOOD about 15 yards out. The big target man took two touches: the first of which was to control the ball and the second to blast it right footed past the keeper and low into the far corner of the net.


Even this early the final result of this game was readily apparent: the main point of interest was more about the extent of the victory and the final goal tally. United were utterly dominant and for all the enthusiasm that this relatively young and inexperienced side brought to the encounter they were, to mix metaphors, chasing shadows and clutching at straws. United moved their back line up to the halfway mark, installed them firmly enough there to compress the vast majority of play into Clach territory wherein they also enjoyed the vast bulk of possession.

With play compressed this way scoring opportunities were somewhat reduced and the open, flowing football which United can often deliver constrained. However, the pressure United generated was incessant and the corner tally rattled up to the extent that Formartine had clocked up 11 without reply (curiously 9 of them on the left) before they got the ball in the net again. In the 20th minute Callum conceded a fairly unwise free kick for a foul on MacPhee about 5 yards outside the box and a bit left of centre.

You could see almost straight away that GETHINS fancied this one - as if he was completely confident that he could put the ball on target in a place the keeper couldn't reach. He plonked the ball down and surveyed the layout of the Clach defence then took a few seconds before quite delicately, but with lethal precision, squeezing the ball over the left corner of the wall and into the very top corner of the net for number three.

Clach did not crumble at this but there was no way back for them. United were stronger, wiser, wilier, and better organised and playing well within their limitations, kept possession and continued to dominate albeit not as forcefully as before. They continued to rack up corners and generally sustain pressure. For all that keeper MacLennan was not worked as hard as he could or probably should have been. Rodger drew a decent save from him with a crisp shot on the turn from the edge of the box in the 36th and Wood had one tipped away for a corner a couple of minutes later. However, for the most part the last ten minutes or so of the first period consisted of United struggling for space in an over-populated final third.

They began the second half a bit more fluently, trying to build up from the back a bit more than they had at the tail end of the previous period but by the hour mark the final third at the Clach end was clogging up again. This suited Clach more than United at least to the extent it helped them keep the score down and offered the very occasional chance of lumping the ball over the United defence when they were committed far forward. Once this happened when they got the ball up to Wilson who managed to get one on one with keeper Main who was forced into making a decent diving save from a well struck twenty yard drive.

United refreshed by substitutions and stretching the game wider and deeper began to ramp up the score line. CRAWFORD rare for a right back, completed his double in the 74th minute. He had some success attacking balls at the back post area. Apart from his early goal he come within a whisker of nicking one in from a McGowan cross in the 58th minute. This time sub Greig was the provider for him to clip the ball simply into the net from close range.

Garry WOOD, denied by what most thought was a valid goal in the 84th minute, got his just deserts with a cracker of a goal in the 88th. Rodger made a blistering 50 yard run with the ball down the left before whipping it over to meet the run of the big striker who drove home the cross, right to left into the far corner from about 12 yards range to complete the scoreline.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie

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