United arrived in Wick on the back of a 5 match winning run scoring 30 goals and only conceding 1, however United were to suffer their first blank of the season and in turn get dumped out of the Colin Macleod Memorial Cup. It was a fairly low key start to the game
\ncertainly in comparison with recent games as Staxigoe looked to stifle the
\nUnited attack from the outset. The first effort on goal came very ambitiously
\nfrom James Murray taking on a volley from fully 30 yards off balance when Ross
\nAllan had found space on the right. United had re-shuffled the pack for the
\ngame moving Jamie Mackenzie back to sweeper but this did not stop him posing a threat
\nin the opposition box and he was narrowly off target from an Allan corner from
\nthe right the swept to the back post. Former United man Jimmy Budge was
\nthe next to threaten this time after 25 mins narrowly wide with a header from a Shearer chip to the back post after United had failed to properly deal with the original freekick. United continued to huff and puff but really the quality of their attacking play did not lend
\nitself to clear cut chances although Mark Nichol latched on to a delightful pass from Ryan Begg ten minutes before the break, on the angle but his shot driven was well defended by Alan Sinclair in at the near post at the expense of a corner. From the resulting corner Grant Steven should have put United ahead with a clear jump in front of goal he seemed destined to meet Allan\u2019s corner but the centre half somehow failed to make the necessary contact. In the last five minutes the home side pushed on and were awarded a freekick 30 yards from goal out towards the touchline that saw Colin Sinclair whip the ball in low and Jimmy Budge flicking the ball goalwards that saw Gray diving to turn it away for a corner.<\/p>\n
Half time<\/p>\n
Staxigoe 0-0 Pentland United<\/p>\n
United made a very slack start to the second period as Gray fielded a pass back from
\nMackenzie he switched the ball towards Grant Steven but the ball rather fell
\nbetween the centre back and Derek Manson in the confusion Niwa nipped in and
\nrobbed the ball and drove towards the box but was stopped by a beautifully
\ntimed tackle from Mackenzie that unfortunately referee Elder adjudged to be a foul. Colin
\nSinclair stepped up to bend the ball goalwards\u00a0but Gray held at the second time
\nof asking.\u00a0However United never learned their lesson as ten mins into the half Gary
\nMackay was adjudged to have brought Martin Banks down 25 yards from goal. Greg
\nShearer took the shot on with a low drive that seemed destined to be a routine save for
\nGray until it seemed to hit a divot and the keeper was extremely fortunate to
\nglove it for a corner. United had tried to influence a change introducing Watts
\nand Michael Steven for Manson and Begg respectively however the tone that had
\nbeen set seemed very hard to change although skipper Steven did have a half
\nchance when another Allan corner swept to the back post and the central
\ndefender could only look on agony as his header went over. With less than
\ntwenty minutes left the home side made the break through Niwa made good
\nprogress down the right but the combination of Watts and Grant Steven seemed to
\nhave snaffled the opportunity but Jimmy Budge showed great appetite to bulldoze
\nhis way passed a coupe of lazy challenges before rifling the ball into the top
\ncorner from what seemed a near impossible angle. United did step up their
\nefforts after this set back but were perhaps fortunate not to fall further
\nbehind when elusive play from Budge down the left saw him eventually square for
\nMartin Banks whose effort was blocked by keeper Gray. A couple of set-pieces
\ndid present some almighty scrambles but when United were looking for composure
\nnone was to hand to apply the clinical touch. Nichol finally warmed Daniel
\nBudge\u2019s gloves with a freekick from 25 yards on 83 mins but it was no more than
\na routine save.<\/p>\n
Full time<\/p>\n
Staxigoe 1-0 Pentland United<\/p>\n
1. M Gray 2. G Mackay 3. D Manson (c) (T Watts 65) 4. G Steven 5. D Mackay 6. R Begg (M Steven 60) 7. L Sutherland 8. J Mackenzie 9. M Nichol 10. J Murray 11. R Allan<\/p>\n
Subs not used<\/p>\n
Mckechnie<\/p>\n
Coghill<\/p>\n
View from the goal<\/p>\n
A very disappointing performance not just the fact that we lost but the manner we lost, which was concerning. Certainly question marks over a few attitudes on display and we
\nhave to learn from mistakes but that is life I guess and we move on to Keiss now in the E Macintosh Cup and desperate to get back on track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United arrived in Wick on the back of a 5 match winning run scoring 30 goals and only conceding 1, however United were to suffer their first blank of the season and in turn get dumped out of the Colin Macleod Memorial Cup. It was a fairly low key start to the game certainly in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reports2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pentlandunitedfc.co.uk\/publog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}