Goalkeeper Ryan Clarke said he was delighted to scoop the Blue Square Premier Player of the Month award for September – but insisted it was really a team effort which helped him win it.

“It’s nice to get it, on a personal level, but I think we deserve it as a group,” he said.

“We’ve had some good clean sheets and ones that we’ve had to work hard for as well. It’s not been a matter of just coasting through games.”

The U’s have conceded only ten goals in 17 games, and just three at home all season.

“We can take pride from that and the clean sheet record we set earlier as well,” Clarke said.

“We have got to concentrate on just getting as many as we can now.”

Clarke has got behind just about everything in the last four or five weeks, and it was that consistency which helped earn him the September award.

“I haven’t had too much to do, but the stuff I have had to deal with I’d like to think I’ve done well,” he said.

“The clean sheets come second after the performance, but as a group collectively we’ve all played our part.

“The lads have needed to make tackles, and the defenders stop crosses, that’s just the same as me making saves.”

Clarke certainly hopes not to make the same kind of howler that Grays keeper Preston Edwards did in presenting James Constable with his second goal at the Kassam Stadium last Saturday, when he failed to catch the ball under Matt Green’s challenge during United’s magnificent 5-0 win.

“I’ve seen it since and I think it was a fair enough goal,” he said.

“Greeny challenged him and he had all the right to go for it.

“If it was me as a goalkeeper, I’d be disappointed with it.

“Hopefully it doesn’t happen to me . . . but then I’d give the striker a bit of a whack beforehand!” he joked.