Forres made the short trip to Grantown on Saturday, August 22 to take on an improving Strathspey Thistle and came away with an easier than expected 2-0 win, making it three wins on the trot.
Having dominated for almost all of the match, it was a surprise that the scoreline wasn’t greater with the numerous chances we had, but for the man-of-the-match performance from Thistle’s goalkeeper Peter Tait.
The win came at a cost though as Liam Baxter had to be substituted midway through the first half with what looked like a hamstring injury. Ten minutes later Forres took a deserved lead when a Gordon Finlayson cross from the right was powerfully headed home at the near post by Lee Fraser, leaving Tait stranded.
Chances came and went thereafter to increase the score until Gordon Finlayson finally got the second in 70 minutes with a well taken half-volley shot from the edge of the box, his first goal for the club.
Duncan Jones then stupidly got himself booked for constant dissent after not getting a decision in his favour after a challenge, despite the best efforts of his team mates to calm him down and the referee giving him every chance to walk away, he just kept nipping at the referee who just lost his patience and produced the yellow card.
With Strathspey only registering one shot on target during the whole game, Forres goalkeeper Stuart Knight probably wont have an easier afternoon all season, I think he barely touched the ball six times in the entire match.
On Saturday, August 29 we were at home to high-flying Cove Rangers, who must have been confident after beating reigning champions Brora Rangers 3-0 the previous week.
We still had Liam Baxter, Paul Smith and Simon Allan all out injured and could only muster five substitutes, although we matched them for the first quarter of the game they went on to score twice before half-time.
We got ourselves back into the match in 66 minutes with a goal from Dachi Khutsishvili, who showed just what he can do when he applies himself, sprinting forward to nip in between a defender and goalkeeper to pinch the ball, go on to round the goalkeeper and score from the most acute of angles.
The game changed, however, with the award of Cove’s third goal, which was hotly contest as it looked miles offside, how the linesman didn’t see it was beyond most of Forres’ fans comprehension. Heads went down thereafter and we got carved open two more times to give Cove a flattering 5-2 win.
Towards the end, Forres defender Steven Fraser was given a straight red card for an alleged stamp on Stuart Walker, a very harsh decision as both players were lying on the ground. His suspension coupled with the aforementioned players missing through injury will make team selection very interesting for our next match – at home to Inverurie Loco’s on Saturday.