Lochside Park, Hermes
Lochside Park, home to Hermes FC is situated in Bridge of Don, Aberdeen. Along the road from it, Hall Russell United juniors can be found. I went to see Hermes v Dyce in a Superleague fixture on a Friday night. We left from the house quite late due to my dad still finishing tea and as a result missed about 5-10 minutes of play and a goal for Dyce. They were showing they were the better side with the majority of attacks and their number 11 had a lot of tricks on him and had extreme pace. There was no team sheet available so names are unknown. The ground itself was a nice setup. Just two areas for fans to watch the game from but the pitch was reasonably flat, there was floodlights, nice pavilion and you had a lot of space to watch the game from. There must have been about 100 folk watching from the sideline.
Dyce were looking to play a lot of passing football and Hermes were struggling to deal with their quick attacking opposition. This resulted in the Hermes defence using a lot of panicky long ball clearances. Their number 6 was having to work really hard against Dyce's number 11 but he was even faster and looked to be Hermes' stand out player. He was winning a lot of high balls and long balls too. They almost got an equaliser when their number 10 was given a through ball but his cross was unable to be converted by their number 9. The next opportunity fell to Dyce's number 9 who's header crashed off the bar. Unlucky but should have done better. Dyce's number 5 was really impressive in defence as he was winning every high challenge that came to him. He also tried to play the ball on the ground rather than in the air. A mistake from a Dyce defender almost led to him scoring an own goal. The ball was played up to Hermes' number 10, the Dyce defender played the ball back to his keeper but little did he know the keeper had ran 20 yards off his line and the ball almost creped over the keeper as he slipped. He managed to use his head to save him from embarrassment.
The second half sparked some controversy. Dyce scored again through their number 9 who was really working hard. However, it appeared that he was in an offside position when he got a tough onto a shot but the linesman on the far side allowed the goal to stand. Hermes' players and coaches were furious and both manager and number 5 were given warnings by the ref. The ref gave his first yellow card to Dyce's number 8 who was actually having a good game. But a reckless challenge on number 6 gave the ref an easy decision. Hermes' were getting more possession but weren't troubling the Dyce keeper. Their best chance of the half was when number 6 hit the bar with a looping header. From then on Dyce took control. Substitute number 14 was sent through on goal and lifted the ball over the keeper for 3-0 and game over. A smart finish too! A few more Dyce attacking moves were unconverted and that was to be the end of the game.
