It’s not often Football in Berkshire gets to write about international football, and specifically players from the county playing international football.
This week is different though as 13-year-old Aimee Claypole made her debut for the Finland under 15 side in a UEFA-FAM under 15 girls tournament in Malaysia. The other competing sides are the host nation, Thailand and Hong Kong.
She has featured on FiB previously, then as a 10-year-old making the move from Reading to Chelsea where she will captain the under 14s going in to the new season.
Aimee – who qualifies for Finland through her mother – has already made her mark on the competition scoring four times on debut as the Scandinavian side beat Malaysia 15-0.
15 hours later she played the final 14 minutes of the second fixture, an 11-2 win over Hong Kong. The final game is against Thailand on Sunday 6th October (2am GMT).
Decisions decisions
As well as representing Finland, Aimee was recently called up to an England under 15 camp having already attended one back in August.
She started her footballing journey playing for Whitegrove in Bracknell at under 8 level and went on to play a season for Reading before moving to Chelsea where she has been for five seasons.
The final game
Thailand, according to Aimee’s dad Richard, are probably the best team in Asia, they have more funding and always seem to win the Asian Cup.
It should be a good final match up on Sunday between the competitions top scoring sides. Richard added: “The competition gives some of these teams the opportunity to play teams from Europe. UEFA paid the costs for Finland to attend.”
This article is written with permission of Aimee’s father Richard, and photo’s were supplied by him.
