England hosted an Under-17 tournament, and Simieon Howell was in the squad. However, he was an unused substitute in both England games.
England 1 Italy 2 - Wednesday, 11th July, 2001, JJB Stadium,
Wigan
England 0 Brazil 2 - Sunday, 15th July, 2001, Reebok Stadium,
Horwich
Final tournament table:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| Brazil | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | +5 | 6 |
| Italy | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | -2 | 3 |
| England | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 4 | -3 | 0 |
England staged the Walkers Crisps Under-15 International Tournament during February 2001. Simieon Howell was in the England Under-15 squad for the second and third games (against Holland and Germany), and played in the defeat to Germany. The England results and final table were as follows:
England 1 Spain 1 - Friday, 9th February, 2001,
Nene Park, Rushden and Diamonds FC
England 0 Holland 0 - Thursday, 22nd February, 2001, Broadfield
Stadium, Crawley Town FC
England 1 Germany 2 - Saturday, 24th February, 2001, Roots Hall,
Southend
Final tournament table:
| P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
| Germany | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 4 | +3 | 9 |
| Spain | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| England | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -1 | 2 |
| Holland | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 1 |
Simieon Howell is one of Reading's brightest young stars, playing in midfield for our Under-17 Academy side. He would actually be eligible for an Under-16 Academy team, but the single year age group teams stop at Under-15 and then jump to Under-17. There have been suggestions this season that Simieon might well become the youngest ever player to play for Reading FC, which shows how highly the club must rate him.
This respect obviously goes further afield, as he was recently named in the England Under-15 squad for the annual Victory Shield tournament. In international football the cut-off date for age group games is 1st January, whilst for domestic competitions it is 31st August, which is why he was eligible for the Under-15s. (Similarly, Joe Gamble plays for Republic of Ireland Under-18s but is too old to play in the FA Youth Cup, which is for Under-18s.) This is the first season that the England Under-15 team has been run by the FA rather than the ESFA (English Schools Football Association). In the past, this particular team has normally been called "England Schoolboys" or something like that.
Simieon did not feature in England's first two games against Wales and Northern Ireland, but did play the whole game against Scotland at Chester City's Deva Stadium on Friday, 1st December. I believe that England were using this tournament to see a large number of players, so we shall have to wait to see whether Simieon is considered to be a squad member, or a first-team regular.
Regardless of where he stands in the pecking order, it is a tremendous achievement to get picked to play for England at this level. Over the years, there have been very few players from Reading schools that made it that far, and even fewer who were from Reading schools and on the books of Reading FC. In fact, the England youth teams always tended to be dominated by players from the big cities. I always assumed that that was because those players were more used to playing at a higher level of competition, and were more easily spotted by scouts.
Last year, Shaun Allaway gained England youth caps, but you have to go back some years for previous Reading FC players to gain such honours. Although Reading FC often have players on their books that have won England international caps at youth level, those players usually come from elsewhere in the country, particularly from London. At the moment, there's Keith Jones and Lee Hodges, whilst in the past we have had Paul Brayson, Tommy Youlden and Steve Death. The only players I can recall winning England schools caps whilst with Reading FC in the last 30 years are Neil Webb and Lawrie Sanchez. (In fact, Sanchez's two caps were for the England Under-18 schools side, which obviously excludes all those footballers who left school at the age of 16, which I imagine was most of the better ones!).
In the future, there may be more representative honours for players from Reading because of the Academy structure. This should mean that the better players are on show, and getting the chance to play against the best players nationally at their age. This might remain true even if Reading FC did not have a Football Academy as the players from our town would still be able to join another nearby Academy. However, it's obviously more desirable that they stay with Reading FC.
Back to Simieon Howell - I went along to the game against Chester purely because I thought he might be playing. I'd seen him warming up, but couldn't see what number he was wearing, so when the teams were announced I was desperately hoping he was to be one of the starting eleven. The fact that he was playing at number four meant that I didn't have to wait too long! Most of the other players are at Premiership clubs - if the Shaun Allaway experience tells us anything, it is that scouts from other clubs will be taking a close look at our young starlet, and that he might well start to think about what he might be able to achieve elsewhere. I hope he takes on board the fact that it is far more difficult to conceive of a young goalkeeper breaking into Reading's first team than it is to see that happen for a young midfielder.
From the start of the England - Scotland match it was obvious that he had a specific defensive midfield role. It was 35 minutes before he got as far forward as the edge of the Scotland penalty area, and even then it was only because one of the England forwards had the ball out wide whilst the other had been pulled over in midfield by a Scottish player.
During that first half, Simieon won several tackles, got badly fouled twice, and played lots of good short passes. On a couple of occasions he also looked to go past Scottish midfielders before laying the ball off. I also noticed that when England scored he was one of two players who did not join the celebrating players - I wondered if this was perhaps because they all knew each other and he was a newcomer.
At half-time, one of the England forwards was substituted and in the first minute of the half, Simieon found himself in the Scottish penalty area. For a moment I thought he'd been pushed up front in a change of tactics, but it turned out to be the only time in the entire game that he got that far forward. In the early stages of the second half, it seemed that every pass went astray, but as the half wore on he gained in confidence, and started playing well again.
He had one shot, that was deflected away from goal, but his best moment was when he received the ball in midfield, took it forward a few yards beating two Scottish players in the process, and then threaded a ball through the defence for the England winger to latch onto and score. This time Simieon did join in the goal celebrations.
At the end of the game, England had beaten Scotland 5-0, which is always good to see! A player from Reading FC had made a large positive contribution to the team and had looked as though he belonged at that level, which is marvellous. I later discovered that it was England's biggest win over Scotland at this level for over 50 years, so the game really will go down in history. The fact that the two teams were playing to avoid the wooden spoon in the tournament is a bit of a worry, though.
I personally have to thank Simieon Howell, because I thoroughly enjoyed the game, and would never even have thought about going had he not been involved in the England squad. There are several tournaments for the rest of the season for England, so hopefully he will be involved with those. And there must be some of those matches that will be closer to Reading, so that other Reading fans will get the chance to go along and support him.
Later note: Here's the full England line-up for the game - wonder what happened to the other players.....
Ryan Yeomans (Manchester Utd), Stuart Bridges (Aston
Villa), Matthew Sadler (Birmingham City), Simieon Howell (Reading),
David Raven (Liverpool), Shaun Cartwright (Manchester City),
Wayne Rooney (Everton), L Croft (Manchester City), Adam Oldham (Barnsley),
Ross Gardner (Newcastle Utd), Sean Doherty (Everton)
Substitutes: Dorryl Profitt (York City) for Oldham 40; Chris Hogg
(York City) for Cartwright 64;David Mannix (Liverpool) for Rooney
74; Darren Pratley (Arsenal) for Gardner 80
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