Nottingham Forest Women First Team Manager Andy Cook has been named The FA Womens National League North/South Manager of the Month for November after his sides devastating recent form has seen wins against Burnley and Notts County Development before starting December with an FA Cup victory at bitter rivals Derby County.
Cook who joined Forest in the summer is the clubs first ever full time head coach and moved to Nottingham following impressive stints at Oxford United Women, Arsenal Ladies and Durham Women.
This season he’s led Forest to fourth in the Northern Premier Division with the club in the semi-finals of the Notts Senior Cup with ties against Leeds United in the second round of the Womens National League Plate this weekend and in the FA Cup third round (against Burnley or Hull) still to come.
After Sunday’s superb 3-2 win in Derby Cook stated “I’m absolutely over the moon. We went in at half-time 2-1 up and we spoke about how we need to keep it tight and make sure our shape stays right but Derby did well to get themselves back into the game and they threatened us with a few good crosses.”
“But when you’ve got Precious Hamilton in your team you know what you can do. What a great finish it was to win it and the fact it was so late only made it better.”
Cook however was more annoyed at his side letting a 2-0 lead slip which his testament to the way he wants his side to perform on a weekly basis stating “We didn’t do that well enough today and some of the players admitted at the end that they were off their game at times but that gives us something to work on and the players can now go away and analyse their own performance and hopefully the win won’t gloss over the fact that we still made errors.”
“It’s still a great thing to have ways to improve even when we are winning seven games in a row.”
On winning the Manager of the Month Cook will be hoping this is just the start for the team who have looked better and better each week they have had under his coaching with the coach himself suggesting “I’m blessed that I get to work with these players and get to know them as people as they’re all fantastic individuals and I love being around them.”
Forest face Leeds this weekend in cup action at Eastwood Community at 2pm on Sunday.
*Main image @NFFCWomen Andy Cook has been at the helm of Forest’s magnificent season so far.
