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Football

08th Sep 2018

Roy Keane made Peter Crouch sell his Aston Martin

Vintage Keano

Niall McIntyre

Peter Crouch’s new autobiography is really good.

So he says anyway.

Crouchy has earned a bit of a reputation for himself with his Twitter presence over the last few years and if his self-deprecating wit on social media is anything to go by, it’s hard to have doubts about the above statement on his recently released autobiography How to be a footballer.

The 6ft 6in forward has been going all out to promote his book over the past few weeks. Earlier this week, the Stoke man was on BBC Radio to speak about his new release.

The 37-year-old whetted the appetite for what’s to come with a belter of a story about when he made his high profile move to Liverpool. As is often the case with young footballers across the water, the visions of greatness and the notions got to his head. That led to him trading in his modest Renault Megane for a flashy Aston Martin.

Crouchy never felt too comfortable in his new whip, first of all because he was too tall for it and secondly, because this material lifestyle wasn’t the reason he got into the game for the first place.

Roy Keane, as only Roy Keane can, reminded him of exactly that and one of England’s tallest footballers was quickly cut down to size.

“I was playing for Liverpool and England, so I’m thinking, ‘I’ve arrived’, so the Megane can go for an Aston Martin. But I knew it wasn’t me. Getting in it was a struggle, and I never felt right in it.

“But I pulled up alongside Roy Keane, with a bit of speed garage playing, the sunglasses on, window down, arm out. Then I looked at Roy and he looked at me, and you’ve seen Roy look at people in that way. He looked at me, and it’s the smallest I’ve ever felt.

“It was a look of sheer disgust. I have to thank Roy, I don’t even know if he knew it was me or some idiot stopped at the lights, but after he took off and left me in his wake I looked at myself in the mirror… and sold the car that week, and took a big hit on it. It wasn’t me.”

Nobody wants to be on the end of a Roy Keane death-stare.