Formartine United went to the top of the Breedon Highland League with a 2-0 victory against Forres Mechanics at North Lodge Park.
The Pitmedden side opened the scoring after eight minutes when a cross from the right broke for Scott Lisle to finish.
Two minutes into the second period United were on target again when Paul Campbell and Julian Wade combined with the latter’s cross volleyed home by Marc Lawrence.
Around the hour mark Forres were awarded a penalty when Rhys Thomas fouled Jack Grant, but Ewen Macdonald saved Ethan Cairns’ spot-kick down to his left.
The Can-Cans had another good opening when Mark McLauchlan was through one on one, but hit the post.
Formartine have 25 points from 11 games to sit at the summit of the division.
But boss Stuart Anderson said: “It’s only October, it’s not even something I think about and I think every manager would say the same.
“You get assessed at the end of the season, at the moment I don’t look into anything other than week to week.
“We’ve got a lot of young players so can we make them better is what I look at.
“It was scrappy, but I felt we did enough to win the game.”
Forres manager Steven MacDonald added: “The pitch was perfect and that’s a great credit to the Formartine groundstaff for the work they put in.
“It was great to get a game on and I’d say well done to everyone involved for getting the game on.
“It’s the best we’ve played for a while. We’re disappointed with the goals we’ve lost because I didn’t think Formartine had to work very hard for them.
“It’s frustrating there’s a bit of naivety there because it’s fine lines and we’ve missed a penalty and hit a post.”
Banks o’ Dee 2-2 Clachnacuddin
Blair Lawrie was pleased to see Clachnacuddin pick up their third point of the season after drawing 2-2 with Banks o’ Dee at Spain Park.
The Lilywhites led twice against the Aberdeen side, who played for more than an hour with 10 men, but interim co-manager Lawrie was impressed with the visitors’ display.
He said: “I’ve got to praise the boys, every single one of them gave us everything they had.
“If you’d told us at the start of this week we’d get a point at Banks o’ Dee we’d have taken it.
“The confidence is growing again, there were a lot of positive things against Brora on Wednesday and they carried it on.”
Hamish MacLeod hit the left post with a dink for Dee before Jevan Anderson was sent off for tripping Lewis Mackenzie and denying a clear goalscoring opportunity just shy of the half hour mark.
Goal for Clach!!!! 0-1 pic.twitter.com/U2b2uyeXHp
— Inverness Clachnacuddin FC (@clachfc) October 7, 2023
Rorie MacLeod converted the resultant penalty. In the 53rd minute Dee restored parity with Mark Gilmour cutting in from the left and curling a shot into the bottom corner.
In the 77th minute Clach led again with Lewis Mackenzie finishing from an acute angle with his left foot from the left side of the box.
But Dee salvaged a point through Lachie MacLeod’s goal five minutes later.
Banks o’ Dee co-manager Josh Winton said: “On reflection a point is probably not a bad result playing with 10 men for so long.
“But we didn’t take our chances at one end and we paid the price for it.
“When we got back to 1-1 it looked like we would go on to score a second, but we lost another goal.”
