Breedon Scottish Highland Football league

Saturday 2nd November 2024

Brechin City 3 Formartine United 1

Brechin City Scorers: Fraser Macleod (4 min), Dale Robertson (10 min), Ewan Loudon (40 min).

Formartine United Scorer: Aaron Norris (34).

To win the Highland League these days you really need to beat the B’s: Brechin Buckie Brora, Banks O’ Dee and the “the Broch”. This season United have lost to all of them bar Buckie over whom they recently prevailed by a single goal. Their form after a rather wobbly start to the season improved to a more encouraging fifth after a run of results with only one league defeat. This result saw them slide a couple of places to 7th to leave them facing a season with limited opportunities for demonstrating improvement over last year.

Brechin are a big physical but well organised side, desperate to return to the tiers above Highland League that they had occupied until three seasons ago. They elected to hit Formartine hard and early and raced to a two goal lead in the first 9 minutes before United managed to compose themselves to achieve a presence in the game that was enough to prevent the rout that had initially looked like developing, Despite clawing one of the deficit back, they never developed the presence or penetration to offer a credible challenge for any of the points. Defensive frailty which has been an intermittent but recurring frailty that has cost them dearly in the past, returned to haunt them.

Brechin set a high tempo from the outset and, pressing high and hard won more than their share of second ball possession and were quick to break forward down each flank. Their pressure was obvious and Formartine looked jittery in the face of it. The opening goal came from after a goal kick by United was picked up wide right near half way and Brechin flooded forward initially down the left before the ball was whipped back across the United box with Robertson, MacLeod Loudon and Moreland all drawing defenders. Loudon got it fifteen yards out and fed it to MACLEOD, who despite a desperate attempt to deny him by Maclean, drilled the ball low and hard into the net a foot inside Macdonald’s right upright. The movement of Brechin players was more than the United defence could successfully contain and there was a distinct odour of poor communication amongst the United rearguard.

To their credit there was no sign of United pressing the panic button in the wake of that sudden unwelcome reverse, on the other hand Brechin momentum had been rewarded and they played like they wanted more. It took them only three more minutes to press home the advantage with another goal that had some similarities to the previous one. Again the capacity to shift the ball rapidly from the middle of the park to the danger area of the United penalty box came from pressing the ball and flooding forward in numbers. A slick one-two from a throw in near the left corner that looked straight from the training ground got the ball over to the right side of the United box where again the movement of Brechin forwards seemed to flummox United defenders as ROBERTSON was first to the ball to slot it home from ten yards out to the same spot as before - just inside Macdonald’s right stick.

Brechin had the game all but won by then but United began to settle in to their normal close passing game exerting some counter pressure and by the time half an hour had elapsed Wade, a former fans favourite at Glebe Park, managed to find ways of getting away from the attentions of Spark and McHattie. In the 31st minute he wrong footed the latter near the right corner before clipping a zinger of a pass to the left side of the box to find NORRIS who immediately slammed the ball into the net.

United had worked hard to gain that toe hold and needed to hold steady at least until the interval to haul themselves right back into contention. They couldn’t and didn’t and saw their graft undone 7 minutes later when another catastrophic lapse of attention in allowed Brechin to restore the two goal cushion they retained for the rest of the game. A Brechin attack had just been successfully dismantled when they regained possession just inside united territory via a free kick for an over vigorous tackle by Wilson on Patrick. Again they got forward in numbers. The ball was worked forward to Macleod near the right corner of the box as LOUDON’s untracked run from the left allowed him to collect the ball and drive it into the net ironically to the usual spot about a foot inside the keeper’s right upright .

That was it, Brechin were too good to give anything away in the second half, United tried and tried but were too far behind to do anything to restore their fortunes. There wasn’t a lot between the sides over the second 45 but there didn’t need to be for Brechin to collect the points.

Brechin City Team: Wilson, McHattie, Martin, Spark, Patrick, Scott, Macleod [Ferguson 86], Robertson [Hunter 78], Loudon [Johnston 78], Moreland [Tosh 86], Mackay. Unused Subs: Henry, Milne, Carmody.

Formartine United Team: Ewen Macdonald, Johnny Crawford, Luke Strachan, Lewis Wilson [Combe 74], Matthew MacLean, Maec Lawrence [Clark 86], Julian Wade, Graeme Rodger, Robert Ward, Tykler Mykyta [Paul Campbell 68], Aaron Norris. Unused Subs: Rhys Thomas, Stuart Smith, Kieran Lawrence, Cameron Middleton.

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