Breedon Scottish Highland Football League

Saturday 19th October 2024

Formartine United 1 Buckie Thistle 0

Scorer: Paul Campbell (47)

This was Buckie’s first visit of the season to North Lodge as reigning SHFL Champions but their recent form suggests that they have been struggling to live up to the form normally associated with that title.. Their performance in this game showed aspects of what made them champions along with some features that may have contributed to their current mid table emiseration. They gave United a good hard game with periods of sustained pressure and some blisteringly slick midfield possession but Formartine emerged as clear [despite the narrow margin of victory] winners of a game where their keeper was barely troubled and had few saves of note to make. Buckie had an awful lot of possession for a side that emerged goalless.

United delivered as good a defensive display as they have done in long enough and despite spending protracted periods in their own neck of the woods put together a number of attacks that suggested they had the wherewithal to win by a greater margin than they eventually did. Even during the periods when Buckie had some territorial superiority and dominated possession it still looked like United were the more likely to score.

Buckie started on the front foot taking the game to Formartine with a slick midfield sustaining a high level of possession where much of the probing and prompting came from the industrious MacAskill. They set out to maintain a high back line and compress United into a relatively defensive posture at the village end . However the home defense with Wilson and Strachan the full backs and Maclean and Crawford in the middle yielded little space or possession to the visitors and with Lawrence playing quite deep in front of them there were recurrent opportunities for United to break forward with pace and trickery from Norris and Mykyta who created a number of raids down the Buckie flanks but the real thorn in the flesh of the visiting midfield was Rodger who ensured that no visitor was allowed time on the ball in the midfield and repeatedly broke up play denying the visitors the opportunity to generate any real traction. They were not aided in that aim when captain Pugh was withdrawn injured before the midpoint of the first half and replaced by MacHardy. The sub made a bit of a statement shortly after his 18th minute arrival with a shot that spun off the base of Macdonald’s right upright and ran across some of the goalmouth before being cleared. The fact remained that both before, during and after that, United still looked comfortable in their counter punching position and Buckie were struggling to put significant pressure on the United goal. Ramsay got in a shot from a central position a bit over 20 yards out but it was too high. They gained only 3 corner kicks in the first half and not one of them yielded a shot on target. The final third at the Meldrum end was sparsely and infrequently populated but a foray from Mykyta ended with a vicious dipping shot that flew just wide of Ridger’s left stick and Rodger had a crack at goal that got deflected wide left.

There was a sense of Formartine optimism from the start of the second half with the appearance of talismanic forward Ju Ju Wade and United playing towards the far more fruitful f[or them] village end. Their hopes were fulfilled very quickly. Within three minutes they were awarded a free kick about 30 yards out and a tad left of centre. Mykyta struck a dipping left footer into a goalmouth melee and the ball was hacked back to him. He clipped it back in and CAMPBELL was the first to react and banged the ball into the net from a yard or two past the penalty spot to establish a lead that United never really looked like surrendering. Buckie have the pride of champions and desperately sought to remedy their position by investing even more heavily in attack. By putting more bodies into that endeavour they inevitably caused gaps to appear at the back. United were able to use these to good use. Within 5 minutes they came very close to doubling their lead when a brave diving header by Crawford beat Ridgers but no goal was awarded because of a tight offside call. Buckie battled on but just as in the first half their pressure produced little in the way of genuine goal threat for United. Subs came and the game rumbled on with United producing a superbly organised masterclass in cool capable defending and although Buckie played with obvious spirit United were cool enough for their well disiplined defence to prevail.

Formartine United Team: Ewen Macdonald, Lewis Wilson, Luke Strachan [Stuart Smith 77], Johnny Crawford, Matthew McLean, Marc Lawrence, Aaron Norris, Graeme Rodger, Scott Adams [Julian Wade 46], Tyler Mykyta [Rhys Thomas 90+3], Paul Campbell [Aidan Combe 70]. Unused Subs: Michael Danganna, Ross Clark, Callum Youngson, Aidan MacCormick, Cameron Middleton[GK].

Buckie Thistle: Ridgers, McCabe, MacKay, Fraser, Peters [Robertson 76], Macaskill,[Harvey, 80] MacIver, Pugh [McHardy 15], Ramsay, Goodall [Cormack 62], Wood [Harvey 76], Unused Subs: Fitzgerald [GK], Morrison, Munro.