Ex-Bohs and UCD winger Kaleem Simon on Montserrat call-up: 'I was over the moon'

Former Bohemians and UCD winger Kaleem Simon expressed his delight having been called up Montserrat’s senior international squad ahead of this week’s World Cup Qualifiers.

Montserrat take on Antigua on Wednesday evening at 10pm Irish time, before they also play El Salvador on Sunday at 11pm (Irish time).

The games will be first two of their four-game group in the CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers that also sees them face Grenada and the US Virgin Islands. 

24-year-old Simon qualifies to play for Montserrat by virtue of his father being from the Caribbean island.

While he was aware of his family’s links to the island, he was unaware that the Montserrat FA were keeping tabs on him until last year.

“The contact came out of nowhere at this time last year,” he explains to extratime.com.

“I was contacted by the Montserrat FA on Instagram. They followed me and sent me a DM and I was thinking how did they find me on this?

“It was really strange because I didn’t have anything online about me being from Montserrat.

“They asked if I would be interested in playing for them – which I was – so they asked me to send over some footage by email.

“A couple of weeks later the manager Willie Donachie got in touch with me telling me he’d love to have me on board.

“At the time we were meant to have games in the Gold Cup, but they were called off because of the pandemic.

“Ever since he kept in touch and a couple of weeks ago, he told me they were training in the UK – and asked if I would come.

“We were then told about the World Cup qualifiers coming up against Antigua and El Salvador – so I was over the moon.”

Simon grew up in South Dublin for much of his childhood – so he never got the chance to visit Montserrat.

He still has not however, with the squad currently staying in Curacao ahead of this week’s World Cup qualifiers.

But despite not being able to visit his father’s homeland, he is more than aware of the island – albeit from afar.

“I didn’t know as much as I would have liked (when I was younger),” he explains.

“All my family from Montserrat would be living in England or the US so whenever I went over to see my granny and aunties that was where I visited.

“I’ve never been to Montserrat and have not got to witness their culture or anything like that.

“As I play more and more, I think I’ll get to know more about the history. One of the lads on the team has a granny from near Belfast. The link between Ireland and Montserrat is quite strong.”

Currently, the former Longford Town and Wexford is plying his trade in the sixth tier of English football with Welling United.

However, his league season has been recently called off in the UK – with international football being his only chance of playing competitively between now and the start of next season.

And Simon will be playing for Montserrat – if selected to start of course – alongside Lyle Taylor of Nottingham Forest

“The standard of play is quite fast paced,” he said. “But I think as training and matches go on it will only get better.

“A lot of players have not played a lot due to Covid – but they are top quality players. Ideally it would be great to play as many games as we can.

“But to do that we need to win games as well because we’re in group stages. To get out of that we need to win games – and the more we play the better we will get.”