Deveronvale 3        Formartine United 0 

The topsy-turvey nature of Formartine’s season was shown as starkly as it could ever have been in Saturday’s visit to Princess Royal Park.  Vale were still in there pitching for the title but coming in on the back of a poor run and in sore need of a win to keep alive their fading title hopes: Formartine arrived on the back of two excellent performances and aiming to show that they had fully found their feet at this level. Vale taught their visitors a  simple but cruel lesson about appetite, attitude and work rate and ran out very comfortable winners. Neither the fates nor the officials did much for the Formartine cause, but ultimately they were the authors of their own destruction in a lack-lustre display where they lacked the competitive edge to overcome the loss of Bagshaw early in the first half and bounce back from the disqualification of what most thought was a valid equaliser to go 1-1 early in the second half.  These were body blows, but football at this level demands the resilience required to surmount such obstacles and it was plainly visible that Formartine did not have it.

They started brightly enough with a break down the right by Singer who whipped in a low ball that Bagshaw took well and after spinning off Chisholm shaped to shoot before being blocked by a vigorous but fair tackle by Milne. Even this early, it was clear that Deveronvale knew who to mark out of the game and their targets were Bagshaw and Somers.  With Bagshaw they stayed close and with Somers they cut off the supply. This effectively neutralised the visitors’ threat and their hosts then set about winning the game.

For the first 15 minutes, Formartine gave more or less as good as they got: a decent move started by Vigurs set Singer off down the right.  The wide man found his opposite number, Young on the left but the youngster lacked the confidence and muscle to get much cuttance from Milne who jockeyed him wide before bossing him off the ball before he could get in a proper shot. The ball was scrambled out of the home box as far as Bagshaw who, twisted and turned before going down with a groin injury. He was replaced by Coull who was still about a game short of fully recovering from a cracked rib and suddenly the Formartine squad looked severely stretched. Seconds after the substitution, Vale cashed in. McGowan fed Cowie down the right and the latter cleanly and very accurately picked out MOUNTFORD who nipped inside  Simpson and Graham to head the ball over the advancing keeper and into the opposite corner of the net.

Formartine battled back as best they could, but it was clear that Vale were able to handle most of what their visitors had to offer. Coull is a right grafter and gave a glimmer of hope with a fierce drive from a Mackay feed but the centre half Fraser managed to get some of his left hip between ball and net and deflected it wide. The game entered a rather sterile period with Vale having most of the possession and pressure and Formartine holding on without offering much in the way of retaliation.

Formartine started the second period quite brightly and were playing with some width.  It looked, briefly, as if they were going to get back into it. It didn’t last. In the 50^th minute they were denied what most thought was a valid equaliser.  Vigurs and Mackay combined to find Singer in space wide right.  He got past Dolan and found Coull whose rather scuffed shot was cleared off the goal line and slipped over to Somers at the back stick. He clipped the ball in between post and keeper and was astounded to be ruled off side when there were still defenders on the goal line. The blow to Formartine was a boost to Deveronvale who simply raised their game further and pressed home the advantage. In the 57^th minute, big striker McKenzie, about twenty yards out, picked up the ball from a Formartine clearance and spotting Gray a few yards off his line, coolly and clinically lobbed the ball over the furiously back peddling keeper.  Gray got a grip of it and brought it down to the deck but the ball had crossed the line before he managed to do so.

From this point on Vale were in even more control. They maintained possession well and still showed a superior work rate.  Mackay and Coull worked away up front but with Young and Singer being pushed further back to get the ball and Somers finding little access to it, they had little threat to offer their slicker and hardier hosts. The third goal was embarrassingly basic.  A corner on the right found centre half FRASER, utterly un-marked, rising unchallenged for a free header that he simply buried wide to the left of the keeper.

Formartine seemed to raise their game a touch after this, but it was a clear case of too little and too late. Singer managed a shot from a tight angle after a feed from Mackay, but he needed a touch too many and found the side netting.  A clever crossing move between Mackay and Coull gave the former a sniff of goal but Dolan got in to turn the ball away for an unrewarded corner.

This was a comfortable home win and a salutary lesson to Formartine that success against the big boys in this league cannot be achieved without a greater level of endeavour than they managed to muster in Banff.

Teams:

Deveronvale:

Blanchard, Milne, Dolan, Chisholm, Fraser, Smith, McGowan, Cowie, M.McKenzie, Mountford, Watt. Subs:Rodger, Urquhart, Gauld, Barclay, D. McKenzie.

Formartine United:

Gray, Seiverwright, Irvine, Simpson, Graham, Vigurs, Singer, Somers, Bagshaw, Mackay,Young. Subs:  Coull, Shinnie, Cumming, Maitland, Morrison.