Church starts: his background
Simon Church has been handed his full Reading debut tonight, and we have a full player profile on the 20-year-old.
Simon Church
Striker born on 10th December 1988 who is captain of Wales' under 21s and a product of the Club's Academy system.
Born in Wycombe, he started out with Wycombe Wanderers, then made the move to Reading while aged 14.
His first involvement at first team level with Reading came when he was aged 18 as an unused sub in a Carling Cup tie at Swansea in August 2007.
Just a week earlier, he had made his debut for Wales' under 21s in a 4-3 victory over Sweden.
Soon afterwards he moved to Crewe Alexandra on loan, scoring in only his second start in professional football.
He made 13(+1) appearances for Alex, then got another 2(+4) games whilst on loan at Yeovil later that season.
At the start of 2008/9 he made a loan move back to Wycombe, playing 6(+3) times in what proved to be a successful promotion campaign.
Church continued to shine for Wales' under 21s, and scored three goals in two games against England in an UEFA qualifying play-off, two of his goals at Ninian Park and the next at Villa Park.
His Reading debut arrived in January 2009 when coming off the bench in an FA Cup third round tie away to Cardiff - Ninian Park again an important place in his career.
He then made a loan move to Leyton Orient, and became the 1000th player in their history, playing 12(+1) games for the O's and scoring five times.*
In the latter part of the 2008/9 season he was handed the captaincy for Wales' under 21s, scoring against Luxembourg to mark being given the armband. That goal took his record to eight goals in 12 appearances at under 21 level.
*Note that the Press Association incorrectly have Simon as scoring four goals at Leyton Orient. He did in fact score both for the O's in a 2-2 draw with Leeds.














