How to Be a Footballer

—Winner of the 2018 Telegraph Sports Book Awards Sports Bestseller of the Year

'Very funny on almost every page, wonderfully self-deprecating and very sharp on the ludicrous behaviour of the modern player'

— Sunday Times

'The funniest man in British sport'

— Metro

Featured on BBC Radio 2 with Chris Evans

You become a footballer because you love football. And then you are a footballer, and you’re suddenly in the strangest, most baffling world of all. A world where one team-mate comes to training in a bright red suit with matching top-hat, cane and glasses, without any actual glass in them, and another has so many sports cars they forget they have left a Porsche at the train station. Even when their surname is incorporated in the registration plate.

So walk with me into the dressing-room, to find out which players refuse to touch a football before a game, to discover why a load of millionaires never have any shower-gel, and to hear what Cristiano Ronaldo says when he looks at himself in the mirror.

We will go into post-match interviews, make fools of ourselves on social media and try to ensure that we never again pay £250 for a haircut that should have cost a tenner. We’ll be coached and cajoled by Harry Redknapp, upset Rafa Benitez and be soothed by the sound of an accordion played by Sven-Goran Eriksson’s assistant Tord Grip. There will be some very bad music and some very bad decisions.

I am Peter Crouch. This is How To Be A Footballer. Shall we?

Can’t get enough of Crouch? Tune into That Peter Crouch Podcast on Radio 5 Live

Reviews

“However overpaid and preening you might assume Premier League footballers to be, think again. They're worse, according to this amusing insider's account”

— Sunday Times Sports Book of the Year

“Who knew that a footballer could be funny? ... What you realise, as you laugh out loud, is that football has been taken too seriously by too many people for too long... Most other football books wither by comparison”

— Daily Mail Sports Book of the Year

“As someone who's been there, done it and got the ill-fitting T-shirt, Crouch is well placed to shed light on the bizarre world of the modern player in a funny, down-to-earth way... He made his name on the pitch ... but with this book, Crouch proves he is a good sport off it, too.”

— Jade Craddock, Sun

“On his way to being a national treasure... most enjoyable”

— Daily Telegraph

“Peter Crouch is a comedy genius”

— Daily Mail

“One of the funniest human beings on the planet”

— Romesh Ranganathan

“I’m not a big book reader, I’m just not. And I’ve skimmed through this already and thought ‘I’m gonna really, really, really, really like this. Seriously, I’m really gonna like it”

— Chris Moyles

“I’ve never read a sports book before, but it is really funny”

— Alex Jones

“Good footballers come and go but comedy genius - that’s for life”

— Johnny Vaughan

“I’ve read a good number of books by footballers, both for business and pleasure, and this is easily one of the best, mainly on the grounds that it’s incredibly funny”

— Ben Machell, The Times Magazine

“One of the funniest books ever”

— Shortlist

“Incredibly funny”

— Jilly Cooper

“One of the funniest human beings on the planet”

— Romesh Ranganathan