A Finlay Ness brace and strikes from Gavin Troup and Ewan Reid were enough for Aberdeen City to come out on top in a pulsating encounter against Aberdeenshire.

Cameron Heslop and Archie Hopper netted for the hosts.

Aberdeenshire took the lead on nine minutes, a ball from Will Storey found Heslop whose lightening effort curled past the stranded Jakub Biorka from 15 yards, Shire started the game the brighter and the lead was deserved.

On 24 minutes, Aberdeen City tried to pull level after a ball from Matthew Morrison found Troup, however the midfielder failed to connect with the ball on target.

Both sides restricted each other to limited chances in the first period however some good football was played at the same time.

Three minutes before half time it was 1-1, a corner kick from Dylan Forsyth found Lewis Robertson who headed onto Troup eight yards from goal, where he side-footed the ball into the net beyond Kyle Leiper to change the complexity of the game.

A free kick for Aberdeenshire by Hopper was blocked by Finlay Wood and the ball came out to Banff Academy midfielder Declan McKay who had a speclative effort on goal saved by Biorka.
 

Aberdeen City took the lead on 68 minutes, a throw-in found Ewan Reid who found Ness and the Cults Academy forward steadied himself before guiding the ball beyond Leiper from 25 yards out in what was a good finish from the striker.

Shire tried to pull level courtesy of a Joey Wilson free kick however it was deflected wide, Wilson worked hard for the hosts and the Meldrum Academy forward was very unlucky not to score.

Hopper guided Shire level on 79 minutes, a good ball from Cameron Heslop found the centre half who guided home a fine header past Lucas Muller, it was all to play for during the latter stages of the match with nothing to seperate the teams up to that point.

Aberdeen City went in front again 3 minutes later, a free kick from Forsyth was cleared only into the pathway of Reid and the sub curled a lovely effort into the bottom right hand corner to put last seasons national trophy winners back in front.

Before full time, City put the game to bed, a long kick from Muller evaded the Shire backline and Finlay Ness got the ball before edging past the last man and the Cults Academy striker broke into the box and slid the ball into the net beyond Muller to complete a good day's work for City.

A tough result to take for Aberdeenshire who until City scored their third goal were right in the game and a 4-2 defeat is a little bit harsh from their perspective, Aberdeen City were a little bit slow to begin with however they alongside the Shire played some fantastic football and City deserved the win on the day.

Aberdeen City play North Of Scotland on the 30th October at Balmoral Stadium, home of Cove Rangers whilst Aberdeenshire have a must-win game against North on the 14th November in Inverness.