Simson was a bronze medallist at the European Athletics Junior Championships in 1989 and won the silver at the 1991 Summer Universiade.

[5] In international competition he placed seventh at the 1987 European Athletics Junior Championships before improving to take the bronze medal at the 1989 edition.

He achieved a new best of 19.23 m (63 ft 1 in) in Tallahassee in May and placed in the top five at the Bislett Games and Athletissima meet in Europe that summer.

[1] He was over nineteen metres again at the 1991 Summer Universiade held in Sheffield and was the silver medallist behind Soviet Union's Aleksandr Klimenko.

[9][10] He missed most of the 1992 season, bar a pair of third-place finishes at the AAA Championships and the 1992 European Athletics U23 Cup.

He won the Southeastern Conference Championship title for the Florida Gators before being selected to represent England at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

[6] Outdoors he was runner-up at the UK Championships to Shaun Pickering – the contest marked the first time two athletes had thrown over nineteen metres at the competition.