There are many stories liable to provoke an out-loud snort of laughter from the reader in Peter Crouch’s new book “How to be a Footballer”, although the one about his secret Santa present for Rafael Benitez back in the Liverpool days might just take the gold medal.

Crouch and his team-mates had noticed that Benitez had begun wearing a leather jacket, and rather like David Brent in The Office seeking to imitate his new, more popular rival, suspected that he might be competing with Jose Mourinho. That Christmas, Benitez unwrapped his present – gifter unknown – to find a leather jacket and a Mourinho biography. “His face just fell,” Crouch recalls. “Oh no, I thought. I’ve actually offended him. It’s all gone wrong. I never told him it was from me. Until now. Sorry, Rafa.”

It is an unconventional autobiography, expertly ghost-written by the BBC journalist Tom Fordyce, which captures perfectly Crouch’s self-deprecating style and eye for the absurd. It has been one of the bestsellers of the year and is shortlisted for the Telegraph Sports Book Award 2019. With a high-charting BBC podcast along the same lines and a weekly Daily Mail column, Crouch, 38 next month, and in the final year of his Stoke City contract, finds himself with a burgeoning media career just as he contemplates the end of more than 20 years as professional.