With Buckie on cup duties, this game opened up the possibility of Formartine going top of the SHFL on goal difference were they to defeat Vale by a 6 goal margin, it was a very big ask of a side whose injury list contained such top team regulars as Crawford, Adams, Wilson and Park as well as a likely first for the Highland League, the unavailability because of international duties, of top goal scorer Dominican striker, Julian Wade.  In such circumstances , the five goal rout of a fiesty young Vale side, is no mean feat and still leaves them sharing top spot on points and only a single goal shy on goal difference.

Conditions were brutal for a game played at a pace as scorching as the 29 degrees of global warming that never relented throughout, The first half was a slow burn as far as goals were concerned as each side strove to impose their pattern on the play.  Vale had clearly set out to get in the faces of their hosts by chasing, harrying and trying to stop them settling into their normal pattern of play.

The initial pattern was fast, furious and end to end with no player being allowed time on the ball. . Despite the small mercy of a 2 minute water break midway through the half, the pace never really relented until the last few minutes before the break when United took the lead. From a throw on the right the ball as fed into a crowded penalty area where LAWRENCE despite the attentions of Noble got just enough on the ball to trundle it slowly into the net in the 42nd minute.

The second half was a different affair: while the pace didn’t drop significantly it began to look increasingly like Vale had set a tempo that they couldn’t sustain as well as United did and errors started to creep in. In the 66th minute a throw from the left by MacLean caused a dithery response in the Vale goalmouth by Goldie and Allan that Jake STEWART exploited by splitting the pair and banging the ball into the net.

United were in charge by now and their attacks were sustained and repeated. The third goal showed the background of fitness in the United side as Norris, collecting the ball in his own half broke forward and right at blistering pace outpacing Goldie to hit a superb right to left cross that Stewart met at full pace to crash a thumping header off the bar, CAMPBELL broke through the centre to bundle the rebound into the net from close range.

Vale were a beaten side by now and United continued pursue their quest to up their goal tally, Their 4th goal again started from deep when Smith in the middle of his own half slipped the ball left to centre half MacLean who simply advanced a few yards to deliver it fully forty yards diagonally forward right to meet the run of CAMPBELL who shrugged off the attentions of Noble and set himself to leather the ball hard and low past keeper MacIntosh from ten yards out in the 82nd minute.

These last two goals were the products of the club’s more senior players but the last was the work of two youngsters and scored by a teenager making his debut after coming on as a sub a few minutes before. Adam Emslie, also a sub made a blistering run through the inside left channel after collecting a feed on the halfway line and taking the ball to the left corner of the box from where he took out a couple of defenders by hoisting the ball over them to Scott SPARK who had no hesitation in hammering the ball home from 15 yards out with all the assurance of a veteran and sealed the game in the last minute.

Teams:

Formartine United: Macdonald, Norris, Spink, Thomas (S. Smith 70), MacLean, Lawrence (Spark 80), Lobban, Rodger ,Stewart, Combe (Campbell 70), Lisle (Emslie 59). Unused Subs: Anderson, Mackay

Deveronvale: Macintosh, Goldie, Noble, Allan, MacLellan, Bradford, Ormsby, Read, Angus, Watson (Thomson 70), Petermann. Subs: Stewart, Dlugosz, Jam, MacKillop-Hall, Mitchell, West.

‍

‍

‍