CROUCHY MEETS ‘CROUCHY’
England legend and new Sportsmail signing Jill Scott is nicknamed after Peter Crouch ... so who better to interview her than the man himself? They talk robots, World Cups, bus parades — and have a lot of laughs!
PETER CROUCH: I have to start by asking you this question — is it true they call you ‘Crouchy’?
JILL SCOTT: Yes! In one of my first games for Everton years ago, I did the Robot after I scored!
CROUCH: Serious? No way! SCOTT: Ever since I did it, I’ve been called it. Mind you, your version is a bit better than mine…
CROUCH: It’s great to see you after what was a fantastic summer. How do you look back on the World Cup and, most importantly, how the profile of women’s football has changed?
SCOTT: When you are out and about, people come over now and ask for a picture. I love meeting people. You’ll get tweets saying, ‘I saw you in the supermarket’ and I tell them, ‘Why didn’t you come over and say hello?’ I’m sure you get recognised all the time but that side of the game has definitely progressed massively.
For the younger players, it’s a case of trying to remind them that it hasn’t always been like that. One of the things that was amazing last season — and it was another big thing for women’s football — was us being able to join in the men’s bus parade for Manchester City. We had our own bus and own trophies (City won the FA Cup and League Cup). It was great. The bus had our pictures on. We went first — ladies first! — but the crowd was fantastic.
CROUCH: How have you found the difference from when you first started playing to now? The interest since the World Cup?
SCOTT: My God, it’s massive! Even at 25, I was at Everton and I wasn’t full-time. I had to coach part-time in Sunderland, then travel three times a week to Liverpool for training. I’d play games on a Sunday. So to come in here (to City), get your breakfast and stuff like that. It is so much more professional. There is a massive change.
CROUCH: You must have been travelling nearly 1,000 miles a week at one point.
SCOTT: It was 176 miles from door to door. I know it because I wrote it down so much on my expenses! There was a time when we didn’t even get expenses. I went to Loughborough University and got a student loan because I was doing an FA scholarship. I ran up this massive debt because I was using it for travelling — and never even got my degree!
But you know what? If I could go back to any time in football, it would be then. The girls I met … it wasn’t as serious as it is now. We were training twice a week, there was a bit of a social scene. Now? You can’t afford to relax.
We have been trying to arrange a social for our team here, to get the new girls involved. When you are playing three times a week, you can’t be like, ‘Let’s go out!’
CROUCH: What has been the best or oddest moment since the summer when you realised how much life had changed?
SCOTT: I’m a massive Sunderland fan and had a season ticket growing up. Grant Leadbitter is their captain now. We played Manchester United at the Etihad. When we came out, everyone was queuing for autographs. And there is Grant, stood in the queue, with his two daughters waiting for autographs.
He had just been over to the club shop and bought a kit for one of the girls with my name on it. His wife was saying, ‘I’m really sorry to bother you’, because she is used to Grant getting that attention.
It was a moment where I was thinking how much it had changed. Even being around the academy, the young boys who are Under 8s, Under 10s, Under 12s — you can see them say, ‘That’s a first teamer’. It’s not like, ‘ There’s the women’s team’. There are little changes now because you were used to certain tags in the past. When I was at senior school, I had to fight to get a girls’ football team. Now it is just a given that there will be one.
CROUCH: How has the atmosphere at the games changed?
SCOTT: We are obviously not going to get 30,000 coming to every game, as when we played Manchester United, but there are more people turning up. We have to build on this. There was a massive influx of interest in the game after the last World Cup (in 2015) but then it died ddown. OOur challengehll iis tto kkeep performing to get people to come back. We’ve sold 70,000 tickets for the game at Wembley in November (against Germany) and there are more than 20,000 going to the Riverside Stadium for the game against Brazil. Even to get those numbers is incredible. I remember when we were getting 5,000 for international games. CROUCH: How much a part of your life is England and being around it? 143 caps is just insane. SCOTT: It’s massive. I get asked why I never went abroad to play, as there were certain parts of my career when I could have gone. I just always prioritised playing for England. The older you get, you realise more what it means. I am very proud to have played for England so many times. As a kid, you don’t imagine even making your England debut. Reaching my 100th cap (against Australia in October 2015) was one of my proudest moments. You had a good goals- togame s ratio, didn’t you? CROUCH: Oh, you know… just off the top of my head, I think it was 22 in 42! (both start laughing.) Seriously, I always felt that I was going to score for England. Not because I was world
class but I just felt a lot of international teams couldn’t handle me. Then playing with David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney… I had so many class players, playing to my strengths. It was perfect. I loved it.
SCOTT: I’m not just saying it because you are here, but you could have gone on so much longer. Your goals-to-games… if that had been other players... that record, any striker would be proud of that internationally. It’s massive.
CROUCH: I always felt like ‘Plan B’, to be honest. I got that — if Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney were fit, they started. You have started the majority of your games, haven’t you?
SCOTT: I don’t ever class myself as a starter, though. With England, it is different. The first World Cup in 2007, I didn’t think I would play a minute. But because of injuries and suspensions, I ended up playing the whole thing.
Then I went to the Euros in 2009, didn’t play, but came on in the semi-final to score the goal that took us to the final. I always say to the younger players, playing for England is about moments: when you get a moment, take it. I have had some good moments.
CROUCH: Was there part of you that wanted to savour the World Cup this summer a little bit more? The last year, when I was on the bench, every time I came on and scored it felt like it could be the last one, so I enjoyed it so much more. I made a conscious effort to enjoy it.
SCOTT: You can overthink things. Going into the World Cup, I tried to stay off Twitter and stuff like that. I probably ended up having my best World Cup from an individual point of view. You know it is not going to go on for ever but I look forward to the next chapter. I really do.
CROUCH: You are 32 now, so you have plenty of years ahead of you — I heard that Phil Neville said you could carry on playing until you are 40. Have you started to think about retirement?
SCOTT: You know what, I feel as though as soon as I hit 30, people mention it a lot more. They always ask: ‘ What are you going to do next?’
CROUCH: I found that! All the time. I ended up playing for another eight years! 38!
SCOTT: People talk to me about the transition from football. They put it in your head and then you end up having this mental battle. Should I stop? Should I prove people wrong and power on?
CROUCH: I went that way for a bit. When I was 34, people were writing me off. It felt like my age was a stigma. I was at Stoke then but I still felt as though I was the best striker. As I was 34, I had to be on the bench. I kept asking why. I came back and ended up playing 30 games the following season but after that it was back to the bench.
SCOTT: You don’t want age to be used as an excuse. We do our fitness testing and I am still second out of the whole squad. If I can keep myself up there, I will be fine. Some of the girls now are half my age...16! It definitely gets harder every year, but I don’t know whether it is the mental battle rather than the physical battle.
CROUCH: How have you found working with Phil Neville? SCOTT: I like him.
CROUCH: Come on, tell the truth! SCOTT: Ha! I do really like him. Out of all the managers I have had, his management side with me has been really good. I don’t know whether that is because he has been an older player. He gets it a bit more. He will say to me, ‘Jill, you don’t have to do the fitness test today — we know you are going to be up there’. He gets it with the older players. He’s very diligent. He was hard-working and I think he recognises that in me. Did you have much to do with him?
CROUCH: God, yeah. We were in England squads together. He was great — a top professional. You could see he was going to be good in management. Do you think there could be female coaches in the men’s game one day?
SCOTT: It’s like anything. Look at the police — if a female can do the same job as a male, we shouldn’t look at the gender. It’s always spoken about. If someone is good enough, let them do the job. I do think they could.
CROUCH: I hear Emma Hayes from Chelsea — she always speaks really well and is well regarded.
SCOTT: There are some great female coaches out there. Maybe it will just take one to get involved and it will go from there. You have seen with refereeing and Sian Massey. Once it happens, it’s the norm. I just hope one day that we can get away from, ‘It’s a male, it’s a female’.
I look at managers I have had. We have Nick Cushing here. But I have worked with Mo Marley. I never look at them and think ‘ male, female’. I look at the attributes they bring. (She pauses and raises an eyebrow.) How do you think being managed by a female would be?
CROUCH: I don’t know really… SCOTT: Well, I mean, you do every day, don’t you! (both start roaring with laughter again.)
CROUCH: Come to think of it, you don’t know how true that is! You’ve hit the nail on the head. As you say, it’s all about the best person for the job. It could work with a coach first, then build it up.