ATK Mohun Bagan striker David Williams has been voted Hero of the Month for March. The 33-year-old beat Jorge Ortiz (FC Goa), Amrinder Singh (Mumbai City FC), Rowllin Borges (Mumbai City FC), Mourtada Fall (Mumbai City FC) and fellow Mariners Roy Krishna, Manvir Singh and Carl McHugh to the accolade in what was the closest vote yet this season.

As per the assessment procedure, fans' votes count towards 50% of the vote share and experts' votes account for remaining 50%. The nominee with the highest cumulative percentage (Fans+Experts) bags the Hero-of-the-Month award. In all, 970 votes were cast by fans and Williams bagged 104 of them. However, six experts’ votes out of 16 meant the Australian took his cumulative percentage to 24.11% and beat the competition from the abovementioned players.

Krishna got the maximum fans’ votes (224), followed by Amrinder (182), Manvir (155), Fall (121), Ortiz (119), Borges (44) and McHugh (21). In term of experts’ votes, Amrinder, Manvir and McHugh got two votes each. The rest of the nominees got one each.

Williams played three matches in March, two semi-final legs against NorthEast United FC and then the grand finale against Mumbai City FC and he scored in all three matches, however, despite all his effort he couldn’t take his team to the Hero ISL trophy as the Mariners lost to the Islanders 2-1 after a late Bipin Singh strike on Saturday night.

The other Hero-of-the-Month award winners this season are: Krishna (November), FC Goa’s Igor Angulo (December), NorthEast United FC’s Federico Gallego (January) and Lalengmawia (February).