He’s played for seven
Premier League clubs and been capped 42 times, but last month he finally hung up his boots. So what’s next for one of Britain’s best-loved footballers?
Folded up in the corner of a sofa, wearing skinny black jeans and a black shirt, limbs tucked away wherever they will go, Peter Crouch looks a bit like a sleeping bat. (Except he isn’t hanging upside down, obviously). He is tired, he says. Not from a season sitting on benches, in Stoke and Burnley; or from being out on the town, dancing like a robot; but because there is a new addition to the Crouch family: child number four, aged four weeks when we meet in a fancy
London hotel.He wanted to call his second son Divock, after Divock Origi, whose heroics helped
Liverpool on their way to winning the
Champions League (Crouch has a place in his heart for all his many former clubs, but a special one for the Reds). But his wife – the model and television personality Abbey Clancy – wasn’t having it. So the little lad is called Jack. How is he? “Good as gold. He just wakes up for his bottle, he’s not like a crier,” says Crouch, with a proud little yawn. And how’s Dad, at dadding? “Hands on. Yeah, I’m good. I enjoy it, it’s good fun.” There is also another new baby – a weekly football show called Back of the Net (nothing to do with Alan Partridge) that will go out on
Amazon Prime Video. Crouch, who is 38, will host alongside the broadcaster Gabby Logan and the comedian John Bishop. There will be a studio element, with an audience, interviews and, Crouch promises, proper guests, his heroes. For example? Can he say, he asks the Amazon publicity woman who is sitting in with a notepad, playing the role of the ref. Harry Redknapp, his old gaffer, and John Barnes were in the pilot; he can say that.Back of the Net is going to be relaxed and humorous, he says. We will see people in unexpected situations. He mentions they have a well-known football hard man reviewing kids’ toys. Roy Keane? “Ha ha ha, no comment.” Hang on. John Bishop is another Red. Is this going to be a Liverpool love-in? “John will be biased, 100%, but I won’t be. I’ve got a big affection for Liverpool, but I’ve got big affection for
Tottenham, QPR, Aston Villa, Southampton, Portsmouth, all the clubs that I’ve played for. I’ve played for enough clubs to have a varied view on things.”