Harlaw Park(Inverurie Loco Works), Aberdeenshire Cup Final 2020/21, 28/7/21
Entrance – £10 for me, £0 for Wee Man
Attendance – 600 (reportedly)
Pie – Hotdog, coffee and Diet Coke , £7.50
Pint – Birra Moretti, £4.90, (Banks of Ury Hotel)
Founded -1887
Random Fact – It is claimed the trophy is the second oldest fitba trophy in existence behind the Scottish Cup.
Game two of the season and a cup final in the bag already. We could have traveled further afield tonight and Lochee Harp v Lochee United was a serious contender, but a HFL related cup final at my most local club was too good to miss out on. Especially with the chance of seeing the Pitmedden mob getting turned over like they did a matter of days ago in the opening league fixture on Saturday, funnily enough by tonight’s opponents the Broch. We were in luck……….
Good numbers turned out for this delayed final, mostly supporting Fraserburgh going by the noise. With the hiding handed out to Formartine on Saturday the spirits must have been high. However the game did not reflect such a walkover between the two at the weekend. As the old saying goes it was a game of two halves and the Pitmedden side were the far better side in the first 45. The first decent effort fell to the Broch when Sean Butcher acrobatically attempted an overhead which was just a tad too high. From here United dominated and to be honest you would never know they had taken such a do-in a few days prior. They were sharper and more street smart. The created a couple of chances with the best falling to Andrew Greig who stung the Broch’s Leask’s finger tips from ten yards. Fraserburgh had chances too and Davidson should have done a lot better with his header which he put over when it was maybe easier to at least hit the target which if he did he was almost guaranteed to score. This due to MacDonald still scrambling across his line from the initial effort. Then the opener came soon after and despite my aversion to the Pitmedden side, I have to say was deserved. Scott Lisle found himself in enough space from an Anderson pass to take advantage with a very well taken effort from around ten yards. Something noted with Formartine and even Wee Man mentioned it, they broke up Broch moves with foul after foul. I said they were street smart and this was part of it. The did not let the Broch gain any momentum and stifled them by stopping their play by any means. Toward the end of the half Formartine let their guard down a bit at the back and were lucky not to concede with Scott Barbour thumping the bar , followed by Butcher miss hitting a good chance which he up and underered and again soon after the number 10 was guilty of not doing enough to trouble MacDonald from close range. Formartine went in at the break with a deserved lead
HT- 1-0
With Wee Man with his face being stuffed with a hot dog I decided to have a look at twitter during half time, I wish I didn’t as the first thing I saw was the great Dusty Hill of ZZ Top had died. RIP to that man. A legend of his field.
Cliche alert but this was to be a game of two halves and the Broch were a team reinvented and it wasnt long(49) until man of the match Paul Campbell was on hand as a huge Leask kick out dropped in the box leaving the striker to nod home from 10 yards or so. Poor defending, I think so and this is where I noticed that MacDonald in the Formartine goal was not comfortable with the ball in the air and this trend went on for the remainder of the game. 1-1 and game on. Six minutes later Fraserburgh had the ball in the net again via a cracking curling effort from Scott Barbour. Manager Mark Cowie deserves an assist bonus for his hand in the goal. The ball went out for a b;ack and white throw and Campbell was away to rush the throw much to the dismay of Cowie who screamed like a banshee from the opposite side of the park to stop the throw being wasted and it worked. The shy was thought out and found Barbour who curled a brilliant effort into the top left corner. Could the keeper have got his positioning better, there was some debate from near by punters but from Wee Man and I’s vantage point it was a class finish. The Broch took the game to Formartine even more looking to kill it off completely and again could have scored via some ropey goalkeeping. So ropey Wee Man said he wanted to play for Formartine as he could help by doing better. (Hes an aspiring keeper). Six years old and he thought that. Brilliant. To be fair to the Formatine keeper he was good at other aspects of his game and did well to deny the Broch on a couple of occasions to keep the score down. Paul Leask deserved plaudits too for a one on one save he made from Lisle as he was no slouch off his line. A big big chance that the big number 8 will be kicking himself he didn’t take but Leask deserved a pat on the back for keeping the lead in tact and not too long after the save that man again Campbell put the game beyond doubt. He couldn’t believe his luck when a terrible back pass by Kelly was extremely under cooked and the big 9 found himself on the end of it and one on one to coolly slot home with ease leading to mass celebrations on the Fraserburgh bench. Formartine were dead and buried and their mega bucks spending has again seen another trophy pass them by. Some would say the amount they have spent against the silverware won is verging on abject failure. The right result over the ninety minutes and that’s not just someone who has a long standing twenty year beef with Formartine being biased. ‘mon I’burry
Me still 196, Wee Man still 62
FITBAWBAG 