Taplow United 6 Real Milan 2

Real Milan went down 6-2 to Champions-Elect Taplow United in an exciting hard fought encounter on sunday. Real started the game brightly and made several fine openings. The impressive Harley McAuley firing just wide with a fine shoot on the turn. in the 11th minute, following excellent work from Lewis Martin on the right, a dangerous cross was latched onto by Kevin Long but his finish went past the post. Taplow's twin goal threat of Daniel Fleet and Niki DiBart began to carve out some openings of their own and on 17 minutes it was DiBart who beat the offside trap to put Taplow 1-0 ahead. 5 minutes later it was Fleet who scambled home a second. Milan kept calm and following a suberb Long through ball Josh Lake sprinted through the Taplow defence to calmly slot home for the whites. Disaster then struck for Real, when following an innocuous challenge, Lewis Martin lay in agony. After a short delay, he was taken off to hospital with soft tissue damage to his right leg. He looks to be out for the rest of the season.
The Ref blew for half time which allowed Real to regroup, with Karim Usmani coming on for Lewis.
Barely 20 seconds into the second half, DiBart wasted a great chance when clean through and fired tamely wide.This should have been a warning to Real, but following more sloppy play and failure to clear a corner, Elliot Christie out jumped the Milan defence (without jumping!) to put the league leaders 3-1 up. Real had no choice now but to come out and attack, and with Jack Evans and Ricky Wheeler left exposed at the back, DiBart, with a beauty, and Fleet added further goals for United. Karim managed to pull one back, in between Taplow's goals, with a rocket from an impossible angle. But Christie with a penalty 5 minutes from time sealed the result 6-2 in Taplows favour.
For Milan, Harley McAuley, Jack Evans, Karim Usmani and Scott Lawrie were outstanding although all the Milan players did very well. Real's lapses in concentration and superb finishing by Fleet and DiBart was the difference between the teams.
The game was played in a very sporting manner with a 100% effort from all players. The Referee was excellent too.
Thanks to all the players and coaches of Taplow for a great game and we appreiciated the encouragement given to our players during the game.
Scott Lawrie won the SDK sponsored Man Of The Match Trophy