Formartine United 2 Huntly 3
Not for the first time in their brief SHFL career have Formartine found them selves on the wrong end of a five goal match after establishing a two goal lead. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to do so once may be regarded as a misfortune: to do so twice sounds like carelessness. In fairness to their guests, Huntly’s overall performance certainly merited at least one and probably all three points. They played a more studied and technically sophisticated game and eventually [but not without a fair old battle] established the midfield supremacy on which their narrow victory was finally founded.
Formartine started with their two new signings, brothers-in-law Phil McGuire and Jamie Winter, and following the injury of Stuart Gray, second string keeper Horne between the sticks, setting out a combination that had never been tried before. It almost worked. Huntly were up for this one from the start and flew at Formartine from the whistle: Myles Brownhill was set up by a through ball from Reid that was flipped out wide to him by Guild and from near the corner flag, he knocked over a cross that had the new look defence, McGuire and all, rooted to the spot. The ball also just eluded the Huntly strike force. Two minutes later a similar move met a similar fate. It was clear that Huntly were doing their damndest to make sure Formartine had no time to settle or adjust. The first ten minutes were occupied with Huntly offence and Formartine defence, but the Formartine rearguard of Graham, Cumming Simpson and McGuire grew in assurance and found ways of feeding the ball forward. When Formartine broke from defence they carried clear menace. Stuart Mackay is the apotheosis of persistence and Kenny Coull can turn more tricks than a two buck hooker.
They offered more threat down the right than the left where the skills of Fyfe were generally neutralised by Reid and others. Winter and Somers were working their way in behind the front pair and in the 12th minute, following nippy progress in the inside right channel by Coull his cross fell for Winter who let fly with a fizzing shot which rebounded back to him from a Huntly knee. Still twenty plus yards out, he tried again but this time the ball was marginally the wrong side of Robertson’s right hand upright. The pattern was now one of Huntly patiently working the ball forward in a neat, controlled fashion and Formartine retaliating with pace, flare and fire.
Formartine looked the more likely to score and it came to pass that they did in the 26th minute. It’s got to be said that it was a soft one – an own goal in fact. A thumping kick out from home keeper Horne that rose above the floodlights and into the realm of the gibbous moon reached earth in the Huntly box somewhere between Kenny Coull and Huntly’s Reid. Mackay was lurking to the left. Unaware of the rate of his keeper’s forward progress, Reid tried to nod the ball back to him but the keeper was further forward than the full back thought, the ball simply went over his head and trundled gently into the net.
For the next five minutes or so, Huntly chased the equaliser, but lost some of their previously impressive shape in the process. The result was that Formartine began to assert themselves and ran out the first half looking like they were gaining the upper hand. Brownhill worked his socks off and managed another couple of tricky balls into the box but McGuire, Simpson et al were looking more composed and dealt with the threat. At the other end Somers was an increasing menace and began to rattle a visiting back four that began to lack composure.
The second period began with Formartine having a real go at the visitors. 2 minutes in and they went two up. A cute forward ball from Cumming reached Young who flicked it out via Winter to Fyfe who gained a corner. Taking it himself, he curled the ball precisely to the head of COULL who reached it at the front post and flicked it back across the line of the advancing keeper to bury it in the opposite corner of the net.
Two up but with another forty odd minutes to deal with, Formartine seemed to flag. Huntly showed more grit and belief in their still uphill task and although Formartine fought tooth and nail, Huntly looked the fitter side and their tighter passing game slowly turned the screw Winter began to show some rustiness and while the feet were fleet, the legs were lagging just a tad behind. Forsyth came on for Fyfe in recognition of the need to tighten up the midfield and this helped to delay the inevitable Huntly goal.
The initiative now was well with Huntly. Formartine memories of the 3-2 defeat at Buckie began to nag. Enter the fear factor. The first Huntly goal was in the 58th minute. When it came it was a rather tame affair: after a Skinner cross landed well for DORRAT the winger had time and space to hit a simple and not that vicious shot that left Horne either deceived by a deflection, or rooted to the spot. To ensure victory, Formartine had the remaining half hour or so to survive. They didn’t quite have it in them to do so. It was unclear whether they were going out to defend the lead or try to take the fight back to the visitors. Had they committed either way they might have had a better result. They did not adapt.
Huntly’s next came when Ally Graham’s challenge on Soane on the edge of the box [which looked fair enough to most present] gained a Huntly free. Simon SCOTT delivered it hard past Horne’s right hand. With 6 minutes left it was all about Huntly fighting for a winner and Formartine for survival. The former prevailed and on the edge of stoppage time, Brownhill who had been a thorn in Formartine’s side got just reward as he jinked in from the right and whacked a furious shot that left Horne with no chance to seal the result.
Teams:
Formartine United:
Horne, Cumming, Graham, McGuire, Simpson, Young, Somers, Winter, Fyffe, Mckay, Coull.
Subs: R. Maitland, Shinnie, Forsyth, Vigurs, Irvine
Huntly:
Robertson, Reid, Scott, Skinner, McKenzie, Lonie, Guild, Brownhill, Kleczkowski, Fraser, Dorrat.
Subs Soane, Gray, Ewen, McKenzie, Wood. |
