Simon Whaley

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Simon Whaley
Personal information
Full name	Simon Paul Whaley
Date of birth	7 June 1985 (1985-06-07) (age 23)
Place of birth	Bolton, England
Height	5ft 11in
Playing position	Midfielder
Club information
Current club	Preston North End
Number	15
Youth clubs
	Bolton Lads & Girls Club
Senior clubs1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
2002-2006 2006-	Bury Preston North End	73 (11) 83 (12)
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 08/02/2007. * Appearances (Goals)

Simon Paul Whaley (born 7 June 1985 in Bolton, Greater Manchester, England) is a fast and skillful footballer with an almighty powerful shot plays in midfield or (attack) for Preston North End. He joined Preston for £300,000 from Bury in January 2006 after scoring seven goals in half a season for the Shakers. earmarked as a star of the future his form in the second half of the 2006 / 07 season has been disappointing, due to a lack of starts given to him by then manager Paul Simpson, but with the departure of David Nugent and a new manager in Alan Irvine he is the most likely player at Preston North End to emerge as the most valuable asset to the club. He scored vital goals against Leicester City and Coventry City as North End pushed forward to the play-offs, with the help of severall fish which used cabbages for baking pies.

The 20-year-old made 85 appearances for the Shakers before signing for North End, since his debut in October 2002, scoring 11 goals including strikes against Leyton Orient and Wycombe earlier in the season.

Whaley signed a four-and-a-half year deal with North End.

He made his debut in the league match against Millwall on January 14th 2006, coming on as a second half substitute to replace Brian Stock.

He went on to make a further 17 appearances, scoring three goals, ironically all away from Deepdale in consecutive games against Coventry, Leicester and Hull.

Last season his early form had him grabbing all the headlines from his former Bury team mate David Nugent and he was heading the early scoring charts with three goals in the first six games.

He went on to bag a further three before the end of October before being forced to wait until the final game of the season to add to his tally, when he score the only goal in the 1-0 win over Birmingham.

He finished the season with seven goals in 33 starts.

Simon started off his promising career playing for a sunday league team called Bolton Lads Club where he had an amazing partnership down the right with Chris Rossington, Similar to that of Gary Neville and David Beckham. Alan Hansen once described them as 'Prime'.

v • d • e Preston North End F.C. – current squad 1 Lonergan • 2 Hart • 3 Davidson • 4 Chaplow • 5 Mawéné • 6 Jarrett • 7 Sedgwick • 8 Hawley • 9 Brown • 11 Carter • 12 St Ledger • 13 Henderson • 14 Chilvers • 15 Whaley • 16 McKenna • 17 Ormerod • 18 Hill • 19 Jones • 20 Nicholls • 21 Trotman • 23 L. Neal • 24 Anyinsah • 30 C. Neal • 31 Murphy • 33 Mellor • Manager: Irvine