Career Stories Feature #3: Peter Crouch

Peter James Crouch - Former footballer. Pod host. Pundit. TV Personality. Half Robot. LEGEND!

Making our 3rd edition of our Career Stories - this is someone who doesn't need much introduction, however - this guy played for two Midlands clubs - Aston Villa and Stoke City. His wonderful story all started in 1991 when he joined Brentford's Centre of Excellence at the age of 10.



Here is a chronological account of his career club by club. As well as a brief round-up of his time representing England. 

Tottenham Hotspur

After completing his tenure at the Centre of Excellence, he was given a pre-contract at Queens Park Rangers in 1994 but did not stay their long due to a few members of their youth coaching staff shifting across the capital to takeover Spurs' backroom, wisely enough they chose not to leave Crouch behind. He subsequently signed for them on a professional contract in 1998 after impressing for the youth team. The future England star was loaned out to 7th tier Dulwich Hamlet, where he was met with a mixed reception. 

Famous for his tall stature, reaching 6'7ft in his playing career, he then stood at 6'5ft in his very early days and was also around 2-3 stones lighter than now. 

Even in non-league football, height doesn't count for much without strength, and the gangly youngster was getting battered off the ball in every game. Many fans predicted that he would go on to become a third or fourth tier player at best.

After scoring on his debut for Dulwich Hamlet he then failed to score in his next five games. Spurs then decided on another short term loan, this time to IFK Hasslehom - at the time a 3rd tier club in Sweden. He scored 3 goals in 8 games. 



After failing to make a single appearance for Tottenham's first team, he returned to QPR in the second tier.

Queens Park Rangers

QPR dished out £60,000 as compensation to get the youngster to the club. Crouchy would now get a taste of domestic football at a professional level and played in 42 games in the English second tier scoring 10 goals, this however was not enough for the team as they suffered relegation.


Crouch recollected his playing days at QPR and has mentioned them as a team he dearly loved playing for.

Despite being so tall - Crouch was heavily criticized for his natural athleticism, particularly for his ability to leap off the ground. This made him vulnerable in the air and would often lose out to aerial duels by smaller players. The game to goal ratio of 10 goals in 42 games in his first season wasn't exactly turning any heads but for a player of his age was still pretty decent - his future success would be down to hard work and commitment - which he has been known to say. At the very top level, players need that natural 'leap' - it comes to down to athleticism, a 5'7ft player is expected to leap off the ground and challenge for headers - this is just one of the many differences between a professional and a Sunday League footballer.

It became a bit of a cliche that Crouch had a good first touch for someone of his size. He mentioned on his podcast 'When you join a new club and have that first training session, your first touch counts for everything, it's what indicates whether or not you are a top player. If an expensive signing comes in and miss-controls the ball in the first session, I've heard senior players shout how much!' How unnerving!

Due to QPR's relegation into the third tier, the young Crouch had his ambitions set on staying in the league and was transferred down to the south coast, where he joined Portsmouth.

Portsmouth

Chasing off offers from Middlesbrough and Charlton Athletic, then at the time 6'6, Crouchy recalled his time playing a game at Fratton Park and was intimidated by the noise the fans made. In one of his first interviews upon signing, he said to BBC News 'They did not stop'.

The 20-year-old would go on to play briefly under Harry Redknapp at Pompey, as well as Southampton and Tottenham when he re-joined them later in his career. It is no surprise that the pair would later go on to become friends. On the Peter Crouch podcast, in an episode in 2020, Harry Redknapp praised Crouch for his hard work and his ability. 'I knew you (Crouch) would go on to be an incredible player from the first days I saw you train.' During these days, at a press conference, Redknapp would go on to say that he has a good physique and is good in the air, despite what others have said previously.

The £1.5Million tag proved to be a fair piece of business as he went to score 18 goals and was tipped to have a bright future ahead of him by his peers and coaching staff. He then earned a move to Aston Villa.




Aston Villa

It's March 2002 now, and Aston Villa made a £5 Million offer to get Crouch on the books at the Midlands club, which Portsmouth went on to accept. This was at the time not long before the introduction of the transfer window, so players were allowed to hop freely at any time between clubs. Crouch went on to play for the remainder of the season until it ended in May. He made his Premier League debut this season and went on to play in 7 games, scoring twice. 

The following season, he struggled to find a regular starting place and only played in 18 games all campaign, without being able to register a single goal during the 2002-03 season

For the 2003-04 season, he went on loan to second-tier club Norwich City in December, scoring four goals in 15 games, helping them gain promotion to the Premier League. His goals for Norwich gave him newfound confidence and returned to Villa at the end of the season where he would continue to score. Southampton came calling...



Southampton

Crouch returned to the South coast, just a little distance away from his previous club Portsmouth. He was signed for £2.5Million and was initially planned as a back-up to James Beattie and Kevin Phillips. However, as he became reunited with Harry Redknapp as he became manager of The Saints, Redknapp wanted to put him on the teamsheet as a first choice. Despite Harry being criticized for this, he persisted with him and it paid off well, as he scored some key goals to help the side survive relegation from the Premier Leauge. Remember when Redknapp was criticized for playing Lampard at West Ham? Yeah me too, I'm sure Harry knew what he was doing! 




From a personal angle, as a young boy just getting into football, during his time at Southampton I started to become very familiar with Crouch as it felt like he was scoring week in week out. This was probably the time where he really started to make a name for himself after struggling somewhat at Villa. It was also his performances at Southampton that he gained his first-ever England call up.

It's now the end of the 2004-05 season. Crouch managed to net 16 goals in 33 games. After just one season, he was presented with a lucrative move to Merseyside. The recent European Champions wanted Crouch to join them, and so he did. Who could have blamed him from doing so!

Liverpool

Feeling way out of his depth and apprehensive as mentioned more than once on his podcast, Crouch tells how vigorous the training intensity was at Melwood. Particularly under the leadership of Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard. 'In training sessions, there is no room for error. Gerrard would just whip balls into me at 100mph and expect me to control it. The first time this happened, I didn't miss-control the ball but it did bobble slightly off my foot. When he gave me a bit of a dirty look afterward I knew I had to step my game up. I held my own after that. I've never experienced training sessions like this at any other club.' 

On the pitch where it really mattered though, Crouch failed to score in his first 19 games - across four months. He went on to score several goals that season as well as a two-goal brace against Wigan Athletic in December where he scored his first goal - originally awarded as an own goal but was given to Crouch under appeal. 

In his first season for the Reds, he won the first and only major silverware of his entire career - the FA Cup, where he assisted Gerrard's first goal in that spectacular comeback dubbed as the 'Gerrard final' - I bet he no longer got any dirty looks after that! 


In the 2006-07 Champions League season, Peter Crouch would go on to become the second-highest top goalscorer with one of those goals being an ostentatious bicycle kick - despite this feat he would not go on to start in the final but did come on as a late substitute, failing to make an impact. He was given a runner's up medal as the team faltered to AC Milan.  Only Kaka was the man he fell short to in the goalscorers charts.



One of his other impressive moments was scoring a 'perfect hat-trick' against Arsenal in a 4-1 thrashing in the League. A perfect hat-trick meaning a goal scored with both feet as well as a header. 

Feeling out of source following Liverpool's signing of Fernando Torres in the Summer of 2007, Crouch prepared to give everything he could to stay in the side. He still managed to play some part of over half
of Liverpool's games but would leave the club at the end of Torres's impressive debut season - admitting that Torres was a footballer on a different level to him. 

He returned to Portsmouth in 2008.

Portsmouth (2nd Spell)

It's July 2008 - as £11 Million was transferred into Liverpool's bank account, the man who had previously done well for Pompey seven seasons earlier when they were in the second tier, now had to put on a show at Portsmouth yet again. They were now in the big time though, playing in the Premier League as well as Europe's secondary competition - the Europa League. They had felt a new kind of ambition for the man who netted so many goals in the Champions League. He would go on to net more goals this time around too, scoring 4 times in the clubs 6 games in the Europa League. In the domestic league, he would score 11 goals in 38 games. Crouchy still had it!

Tottenham Hotspur (2nd Spell)

In July 2009 the 28-year-old signed a five-year contract after almost joining Sunderland. As earlier mentioned in this article he didn't make a single appearance for the first team back when he played for them at youth level but now he was no longer the unproven skinny youngster who looked out of place on a football pitch!

On the 5th May 2010, he scored one of the most crucial goals in Spurs' recent history - netting a late winner against Manchester City to secure a top 4 place that saw them qualify for the Champions League, something that Spurs have gone on to do often afterward. If it wasn't for this goal, perhaps things would have been different for Spurs in recent seasons. Maybe, just maybe they wouldn't have carried on that consistent ambition that saw them reach the final of the tournament in 2019. He could be regarded by Spurs fans as a cult legend.

In the 2009-10 season, Crouch yet again played in all 38 premier league games. He scored 8 goals. The following season he played in 34 and scored 4 goals. Approaching 30, his game to goal ratio was starting to decline though. Anyway, Crouch was used as a target man, and his natural game focused more on holding the ball up and providing goals for his partner striker. Also, he will be remembered for the number of games he managed to play throughout his career without spending hardly any time in the physio's room. This could have been a factor as to why he played at the top level for so many years, a transfer committee is a lot more likely to sign a player if their record shows that they play often, with consistency and being able to remain injury-free. 

He played his final game for England in 2010 aged 29 making a total of 42 caps and scoring 22 goals.




Stoke City

It was Jonathon Woodgate who persuaded Crouch to join Stoke in August 2011. Peter was bought for £10 Million on transfer deadline day. He quickly made an influence after scoring his first goal for the club against Manchester United in a 1-1 draw. 

The 2011-12 season (his first at Stoke) would be the last time he played at the European stage after scoring 2 goals in 3 Europa League matches. In overall European competitions at club level, he scored 24 goals in 53 games. This includes both Champions League and Europa League. 

Stoke City was the 6th and final team that he scored a Premier League goal for. He became part of the 100 club - scoring 145 goals in the league before hanging up his boots in 2019. He scored 45 of those goals for Stoke City over a span of 7 seasons. He even stayed with them as they were relegated to the Championship for one season - redeeming himself from the opinion of others that have questioned his loyalty.



Burnley

Crouch returned briefly to the Premier League with Burnley as a part exchange deal for Sam Vokes. He was released as the curtain called on the 2018-19 season and announced his retirement shortly afterward. He will be missed by football fans all across the globe.  

International Career

So many top strikers have failed to make an impact at a national level despite playing so well for their clubs - but this does not ring true for the likes of Crouchy. 22 goals in 44 games has absolutely no call for an argument. Even the best strikers will look to find the net in at least 1/3rd of their games - and that's at club level! Internationally it is much, much harder. Who can also forget that hat trick against Jamaica in the build-up of the 2006 world cup? 

He was a member of the 1999 under-20 squad that played in the finals of the Youth World Championship. During this tournament, he shared a dressing room with the likes of Ashley Cole, Stewart Taylor, and Matthew Etherington. The team would have liked to quickly forget their performance, finishing bottom of the group stage, suffering three defeats, and scoring no goals. 

Three years later, in 2002 he was part of the U21 squad that played in the European Championship, he scored one goal against Switzerland but just like three years before England finished bottom of the group stage. 

His first major tournament for the senior side was the 2006 World Cup. It was in a game against Trinibad & Tobago that he scored his first competitive goal for England but under controversial circumstances, as he was pulling on the hair of defender Brent Sancho as he leaped up to challenge for a header. England progressed to the Quarter finals where Crouch would play in as they lost to Portugal. He was a back up to Michael Owen and Wayne  Rooney, as their third choice striker.

He was then called up to join the squad for the 2010 world cup. He came on a substitute in England's first two games but did not play against Slovenia in the final group stage match or against Germany in the round of 16. 

 

Honours

Norwich City

Liverpool

Individual



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