ANDY Cook is repaying Grimsby Town's managers for keeping faith with him during his early days at Blundell Park.
That's according to the Mariners frontman who has won two man-of-the-match awards in a row – and netted an excellent double in the FA Trophy on Saturday.
The 22-year-old, pictured right, came to Cleethorpes in the summer with a big reputation after scoring 17 times for Barrow in the last campaign.
But after nine games, the striker was still looking for his first Town goal and admits his confidence was low.
However, since then, it has been an upward curve for the lad from the north east who has impressed supporters with his whole-hearted attitude.
And now the goals are following as well, with Cook adding his fourth and fifth of the season in the weekend's 4-0 victory over Havant & Waterlooville.
"That's five goals for me this season so far," Cook told the Telegraph.
"I got 17 last year at Barrow and set myself a similar target for this season – between 15-20 – and I'm still confident I can achieve that.
"There are plenty of games left, so that's not out of the question. Hopefully now I've started scoring, I can go on a bit of a run and hit that target.
"It's taken me a while to get started since I came here and I was beating myself up when I wasn't scoring.
"But now I'm playing well, if I don't score it's not such a problem – I'm still contributing to the team's performance.
"I've been doing extra training which has helped a lot.
"When I wasn't scoring the bosses kept faith with me and kept picking me in the team, and that's paying off now."
A superb display in the 2-0 Conference win over Tamworth earlier this month saw the targetman do everything but score.
Having maintained those standards – and added two goals – against the Hawks, Cook was understandably delighted.
"I'm buzzing, especially after the previous week where I was hitting the post and had a few chances that didn't go in – I felt as though I needed that," he commented.
"It gives me a massive confidence boost because I've been playing well but just haven't been scoring.
"With my first goal, Marshy (Marcus Marshall) put in a great ball from the left and their defender looked like he was moving towards the near post, so I pulled off at the back a bit and headed on target.
"The keeper was coming back across the goal so I just nodded it back where he's come from.
"When I took the ball down for the second they must have thought I was just going to hold it up, but as soon as it hit the floor I thought I'm going to turn and go for it.
"Obviously they fell for it – I thought I might have gone too wide, but luckily I managed to squeeze it in."
He added: "It was a good display all-round especially against lower-league after the problems we had against Buxton in the First Round.
"We needed to start well and we did, with Shaun Pearson's goal after less than two minutes.
"It's always nice to keep winning, so hopefully we can go on to play at Wembley and cap it all off with promotion."
