This was the last of the pre-season programme of warm up friendlies ahead of the first “real” game of the new season on Saturday at Keith. In days gone by you would anticipate seeing an outing of what was likely to be or something close to, the preferred starting eleven for the new campaign, but football like everything else moves on with the times. Nowadays it is much more of a whole squad undertaking and given the number of games to be played in a season, almost a year long endeavour. The starting eleven here looked a strong one but still had probably three of the regular starting eleven absent (Rodger, Wood and Greig were on the bench but captain, Stewart Anderson was missing entirely). However this was an opportunity for recent signings to show their paces. The most recent of these,still listed as a trialist ahead of the completion of the necessary paperwork, Scott Lisle made an impressive debut showing pace, strength on the ball and commendable workrate and scoring an excellent brace of goals a couple of minutes either side of the interval. Michael Clark formerly captain and centre half at Huntly started the first pre-season against Montrose but was injured fairly early on and will be relieved to have returned to action where he looks like developing and understanding with Craig McKeown in the centre of defence,

It didn't take long for United to show that the difference between a good Junior Superleague side and one from the upper reaches of the Highland League was quite significant. From the outset they moved the ball about slicker and to greater direct effect than their opponents, who although no slouches themselves, were generally less fluent. MacPhee was too slippery for them and pushing and probing around the box attracted swarms of defenders who still struggled to shackle him. Leyden was playing wideish left with Lisle on the other flank and Hermes had their work cut out from the outset.

The first goal wasn't long in coming - that was little surprise given the pattern of the early exchanges which were dominated by United, but the scorer of the 11th minute opener was something of a surprise in that it was right back Jonny CRAWFORD who burst in from the flank to latch onto superbly judged diagonal clip left to right to space beyond the right edge of the box.

The game settled a little after that but Formartine still had a clear advantage in terms of both territory and possession and the home side were made to work very hard to keep up with them. Sweeney was by far the harder worked of the keepers and over the last five or ten minutes before half time United got a stranglehold on the game with another couple of well worked and well taken goals. The first of these came from Jordan LEYDEN signed from Locos at the tail end of last season. A period of United pressure had resulted in Hermes struggling to get the ball out of their final third and after a low one scudded across their box, it was only partially cleared, the alert Leyden was onto it and smacked the ball home from about 15 yards out in the 38th minute.

In the 44th minute LISLE was fed the ball by MacPhee through the inside left channel and swerved away from Hunter but was pursued by Nash. A blast of pace and a wee shimmy got him clear enough to get sight of the goal from about 4 or 5 yards in from the goal line on the edge of the 18 yard box. From there he struck the ball with lethal precision low and hard past the keeper and into the net a foot or two inside the far post.

The three goal interval was quickly extended to four when a bit of pace and power from LISLE was enough to take him past the home rearguard and onside when he took the ball at full tilt down the left flank. He then checked in to improve the angle for the shot and left the keeper with no chance of reaching his net bound finish. That was obviously enough to put the result beyond any doubt at all, but in a perverse sort of way, it did rather more for Hermes than United. Knowing they had the game won United seemed to take their foot off the gas while Hermes, fearing a possible doing did what they could to save face. A fair bit of confusion in the United rearguard mostly between Crawford and McKeown left enough space for a Dawson cross to be headed home by CLOSE a couple minutes later.

As in some of previous friendlies United began to introduce copious numbers of subs to the proceedings and their fluency faded. They still played well albeit in more sporadic bursts than in more sustained manner they had achieved earlier. They probably did enough here and there to have increased their lead - for example when Leyden skinned two defenders out wide right before smacking a vicious curling drive off the far post in the 74th minute.

A bit of a stramash and a lack of composure twenty or so yards out from the United goal let HUNTER in to drive the ball past Main to ensure a scoreline more acceptable to the home side, but the game after so many substitutions was by then pretty well mired in confusion and certainly over as a spectacle.

Match report by Colin Keenan



Photography by Ian Rennie