"IT WAS A CONSTANT BATTLE, TO STOP PEOPLE LAUGHING AT ME FOR HOW I LOOKED"

As a young footballer, Peter Crouch was the butt of all the jokes - but after a stellar career made him a popular media personality, they are laughing with him now. He tells FFT how he came through the tough times to become a cult hero

- Mark White

“I bought the very first issue with Terry Venables on the cover – FourFourTwo was my magazine,” Peter Crouch tells us, accompanied by a grin. We weren’t fishing for compliments, either. Promise.

“I kept that, top magazine, with El Tel! In the early days, I had all of them – they were iconic… anyway, where were we?”

Crouch was just 13 back then. A wide-eyed teenager from the watercolour sprawl of suburban Greater London, he lived and breathed the game. But unlike some, he was never destined to find his name printed on our pages. Over the years, we’ve spoken to all sorts of players at the top level – but few have been quite like Crouchy.

“I just wanted to be a footballer at any level,” admits Crouch. “With Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, you knew they’d go to the very top. I knew I had something, but I didn’t know what level I was.

“I remember going to England Under-16s with Ledley King. We were late – and the manager was just talking to Ledley while I was stood there. ‘You will play for England, you can’t be late,’ he said to Ledley, before turning around to me. ‘You might…’” Crouch laughs at the memory now, acting out the conversation, stressing the word ‘might’ with the same lack of faith as he received it. “I was just Ledley’s mate leading him astray. I knew I had enough ability but Ledley was unbelievable. I probably ended up with more England caps, though.” Twice as many, in fact: 42 to King’s 21.