For the second December in succession Ian Atkins has been voted the Division Three Manager of the Month. United only dropped one point in the year’s ultimate month, in the 1-1 draw at Huddersfield.

Last season after Atkins won the December award United went into a decline and eventually missed out on the play-offs. This season there is no glamour FA Cup tie to distract the players, and the squad seems altogether stronger and more purposeful.

One of those purposeful types, Julian Alsop, was all set to miss the month of January after being awarded a five match ban for his red card at Huddersfield when an FA panel turned down his appeal. However it transpired that the panel hadn’t seen all of the evidence and so the FA agreed to assemble a new panel to have another look at Alsop’s case. This took place today and in fact it was the original panel rather than a new one. Unsurprisingly, despite viewing the new evidence, they refused to overturn their original verdict and so Alsop will miss the next five games, meaning that (assuming there are no postponements) the next time he will be eligible to play for United will be at Orient on February 7th. Let’s hope that this proves to be a blessing in disguise for the Us who, let’s face it, have no shortage of decent replacement strikers.