HOMER SIMPSON
Aaron had no idea where Kilmarnock is – now Wolves kid is planning summer stay
AARON SIMPSON couldn’t have pointed to Kilmarnock on a map when he got a phone call telling him to drive through the night to sign on at Rugby Park.
Now the Englishman feels so at home he’d love to stay in Ayrshire for longer.
The 21-year-old defender is due to return to parent club Wolves when his five-month loan spell ends in the summer.
But with the Molineux outfit having just secured promotion to the Premier League the task of breaking into that first team is about to get even tougher, which could leave him searching for another move to get a regular game.
And he admits he’d be happy if that means returning to Rugby Park as he’s never felt more comfortable than this current spell playing under Steve Clarke.
Simpson said: “At first I was a bit sceptical coming up because it was the first time I’d been to Scotland.
“I was in a restaurant on deadline day when my agent called and asked me if I had my bags packed because I was going to Kilmarnock. I was like, ‘Kilmarnock?’
“I’d never really paid much attention to the Premiership. I didn’t even know which part of Scotland Kilmarnock was in!
“I literally just stuck it in my SatNav and I was on the road for about five hours, getting here at two in the morning.
“On my way up I rang a few people at Wolves who know a bit about Scotland and they told me the club was doing well and it would be good for me to come here.
“My family is based below London in Kent so this was a long way for me to come away from them although it helped Wolverhampton’s quite a long way away as well.
“But I was wary because this was somewhere I’d never been before and I didn’t know anyone at the club. Normally, when you go on loan you know one or two guys or at least have mutual acquaintances, which gives you an ice-breaker.
“But I was surprised by how quickly I’ve settled and that’s down to a mixture of things. The staff are a lot more approachable than they have been at my other clubs, especially assistant manager Alex Dyer, who comes from near where I’m from.
“I get on well with him and there are no cliques among this squad which probably shows on the pitch.
“There are some people I’m closer to than others but on the whole we’re a very tight-knit group. My contract at Wolves is until the end of next season so I guess I’ll need to go back there and assess the situation as to whether I stay there or go back out on loan.
“If so I’d like to come back here because Killie has been great for me.”
He might be hundreds of miles away from home but his mum made sure he didn’t feel forgotten in the most embarrassing fashion when he turned 21 last month – by sending a birthday cake to the home dressing room.
He said: “That was one of the most embarrassing moments I’ve had.
“The boys ripped into me for it but they still had some of the cake. Stuart Findlay sits next to me and he ate most of it!
“My mum’s non-stop – she’s always calling me, I was on the phone to her for hours yesterday but that’s good because sometimes I find it hard being so far away from home.
“I’m quite a family-oriented person but, when she sends me stuff like that, it makes it a little easier.” Birthdays aside, there has been plenty to celebrate at Killie with the superb season they’re having.
But boss Clarke reckons people shouldn’t get carried away by dreaming the Rugby Park men might yet be in the hunt for a stunning secondplace finish.
Sitting seven points adrift of second spot with five games to play, a win over Aberdeen at home today would raise excitement levels even higher for the run-in. But Clarke isn’t entertaining any talk of a remarkable late surge up the table and insists his squad will only take it one game at a time.
He said: “It is too big a gap to get to second.
“We will just concentrate on securing fifth place as quickly as possible. “There is still an outside chance of fourth for us. If we get fifth and still have time to catch teams above us then we’ll try and do that.”
I’d like to come back here because Kilmarnock have been great for me AARON SIMPSON