How to Be a Footballer

**'Very funny on almost every page, wonderfully self-deprecating and very

sharp on the ludicrous behaviour of the modern player' - _Sunday Times_**

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**'The funniest man in British sport' - Metro**

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**_*_** _A _Sunday Times_ Sports Book of the Year ** _*

_**_ **_*Shortlisted for the National Book Awards_** _

**_*Longlisted for the _Telegraph_ Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the

Year_**_

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**