Crouch playing to help victims of Grenfell disaster
PETER CROUCH looks out towards West London from the vantage point of Primrose Hill. In the distance is the place where he grew up and the football ground where he made his professional debut. There is also the charred shell of Grenfell Tower.
‘One of my best friends is a firefighter and he was there the day after,’ says Crouch, whose childhood home in Ealing is just five miles from the residential block where more than 80 people died in a fire on June 14.
‘Gregg told me about some dark things, firemen being so close, but not being able to save people. The loss of life, the effect on families and the emergency services who responded. It’s devastating.
‘It really hit home, growing up so close. You feel helpless. You want to do something.’
That’s why Crouch will be back at Loftus Road this Saturday, when Queens Park Rangers host the Game4Grenfell match, raising funds for those affected.
‘Football has the power to help,’ says the Stoke striker. ‘We’ve got two legends as captains, Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer. Thankfully, I can play because it’s during the international break — and I’m a washed-up international now.
‘Going back to QPR as well, where it all began, will be special, so this means a lot to me.’ Not all memories of Loftus Road are happy ones, though.
IN the summer of 2000, aged 19, Crouch signed for second-tier QPR for £60,000 having failed to make the grade at Spurs.
‘It wasn’t a nice period. Because of how I looked, there was definitely a prejudice against me,’ he adds. ‘People didn’t think I could play. I weighed about eight stone and was six foot bleeding seven.
‘I didn’t know where to go when I was warming up because I was getting stick from both sets of fans. But I remember the night of Gillingham at home as if it were yesterday. I’d missed a couple of sitters in my first few games and was on the bench. I was told to get stripped and heard someone behind the dugout shout: “What the f*** you bringing him on for?”. That was a boost… I’d only played six times.
‘We were 2-0 down and the fans were p ***** off anyway. A cross came in and I chested it down. As the ball dropped, I slipped. I heard the whole stadium groan. I was heading for the deck, so I just swung a leg and lashed at it. Back of the net. What a feeling.
‘I then set up the equaliser and the place was bouncing. My belief changed with that.’
Indeed, Crouch stayed in the team for the rest of the season, scored 12 goals and was Player of the Year.
‘Looking back, that was perhaps the most important goal I’ve ever scored,’ he says.
We have met in The Queens pub at the foot of Primrose Hill. ‘At least I don’t have to go all the way to the top to get a good view,’ he remarks.
This area of North London is one of many he’s previously called home during his 36 years. Born in Macclesfield, his family moved to Singapore for work.
Having escaped a kidnap attempt by communist guerrillas during a holiday in Malaysia, they returned to London. With nowhere to live, they stayed in a YMCA hostel on Tottenham Court Road for six months.
By the time of his first day at school, Crouch was already ‘a full head above everyone else’. But with that came attention, not all of it well intended. ‘I’ve always been the tallest. I didn’t shoot up. That’s who I am,’ says Crouch. ‘It helped me. If you’re different in any way at school, you’re going to get a bit of abuse. You learn to deal with it in a way where people don’t come back at you again. Nothing can prepare you fully for how harsh football fans can be, but it makes you more robust.’
Crouch has always found a way to deal with life’s challenges. Such as the time his parents arranged for him to sit the entrance exam at a private school. His dad had, by now, forged a successful career in advertising.
‘I had a total disregard for that exam. I didn’t even finish half the questions,’ he reveals.
‘It was the best thing I ever did. They would have made me play rugby. I wouldn’t have lasted two minutes.’
Tennis, however, he could handle. At 14, he was made to choose which sport he wanted to pursue. Was the dream Wembley or Wimbledon?
‘I think I could have made it as a pro because I would have thrown myself into it, like I did with football.’ he says.
‘My serve was big. The problem was, when it came back, I was in serious trouble. So maybe I did make the right choice.’
His decision was aided by a season at Stamford Bridge a few years earlier. In the early ’90s, Chelsea’s home had an unfamiliar look. Not only were there cars parked behind the goal, there was a ballboy who almost scaled six feet.
‘I was always crawling under those bloody cars. One game they were getting beat and Gareth Hall had a right pop at me because I was taking too long to get the ball,’ recalls Crouch. ‘They turned it around and were winning — then Dennis Wise started having a go at me for being too quick! It must have looked strange, because Dennis was staring up at me! But it was great to be that close to it in the tunnel, the smell of the Deep Heat. I knew then I wanted to be part of that.
‘IF I had to show my children one match from my career and say: “Look, that was me at my very best”, it would be my hat-trick for Liverpool against Arsenal,’ continues Crouch, signed by Rafa Benitez for £7million from Southampton in 2005 and remembering his perfect treble — right foot, left foot, header — from a 4-1 victory two years later.
‘We finished second, reached the Champions League final and I was the first player post-war to score ten goals in a calendar year for England.
‘One regret? We should have won the World Cup in 2006. That was our time. I look back and think: “How did we not get to a final at least?”.’
His first four months at Anfield, when his goal drought extended to 24 hours of football, felt considerably less buoyant.
‘Every newspaper, every day on TV, it was sending me a bit mental. I just wanted to stay indoors until I had scored,’ he says.
‘But my dad got hold of me and said: “Listen, you have to get out there and face it”. So he kept taking me on these drinking sessions.
‘Remember, that was a long goal drought. I was nearly an alcoholic come the end!
‘After games, we’d go for a few beers and talk things through. Dad was brilliant.’
A dad of two girls — Sophia, six, and Liberty, two — Crouch is 37 in January. Wife Abigail Clancy is expecting their third child. Is now the time to consider retirement?
‘Definitely not. I’ll play until I’m 40. I can still do what I’ve always done. I was never quick.
‘I’ve also noticed it’s a much harder job at home, so that’s another very good reason to play as long as I can,’ he quips.
Crouch has recently finished a two-week stint as a guest DJ on Radio X. It’s an option for when he does finally retire. ‘I loved it. It’s a passion,’ he states.
So what was his first record? ‘Ah, no, I played that safe — Oasis, Live Forever,’ he replies.
And how about management in future? ‘Absolutely,’ he says.
‘I’ve got a lot of experience and I’m good with people.’
A cross came in, I chested it down... as the ball dropped, I slipped and whole stadium groaned