To compensate for the departure of Keith Thomson and Paul Laing, the Hermes management team acquired the services of Chris Courage, Matty Edmund, Gary Robertson, Steve Gibson, Neil Stewart, Ryan Sinclair and Mark Hamilton – the latter 2 on loan before the start of season 05/06. This clearly had a positive effect with Hermes finishing in 6th place in the Superleague - our best ever finish.

Our league record was 12 wins, 4 draws and 10 defeats, ending with 40 points and a positive goal difference.

With a Grill League Cup showing 3 wins, one draw and one defeat at Fochabers we disappointingly failed to qualify for the knock-out stages again. Our Superleague performance was mixed early season, with good wins over Stonehaven, Longside and Formartine with disappointing defeats at Fraserburgh and Ellon. As the season progressed our league form improved and we avenged most of the early season defeats with only Sunnybank getting the better of us twice. The highlight of the league season must be the defeat of champions elect Culter by 5 – 0 at Lochside Park.

In the Rollstud Cup we defeated Banchory St Ternan 6 – 1 before losing on penalties to FC Stoneywood at home. In the Dugout Inter Regional Trophy, a win over Deveronside gave us a chance to test ourselves against Tayside opposition. We defeated Kirriemuir Thistle 2 – 1 at Westview Park giving Gary Robertson, an ex Kirrie player, great satisfaction. Montrose Roselea ended our run with a 4 – 2 defeat. With only the Acorn Heating Cup left we were disappointed to be defeated by Parkvale, against whom we had scored 7 league goals without reply, in the first round. The OVD Scottish Cup gave us a home draw against Banks O’Dee whom we eventually defeated in a replay. This earned us an away trip to Troon and a narrow two goal loss.

All in all not a great season, but with the team finishing high in the league, we could at last feel we were heading in the correct direction.

Lee Sweeney again made most appearances with 40, closely followed by Matty Edmond (39) and Steve Gibson with 37. Principle goalscorers were Edmond with 21 and Chris Courage with 17. Steve Watson again made a major contribution from midfield with 12 goals.