Whenever Eric Dier needs to keep the most challenging moments of his profession in perspective, the Tottenham Hotspur and England player recalls the story of his grandfather somehow surviving a terrible crash in the RAF.

Ted Croker, who famously went on to play for Charlton Athletic and become secretary of the FA, was thrown 50 feet clear when the twin-engined training plane he was in failed to gain sufficient height in poor visibility to avoid Kinder Scout in the Peak District in 1945. Some of the wreckage still lies there.

“There’s a book [Dark Peak Wrecks] about it which I’ve got,” Dier says. “It’s an incredible story where he broke both ankles, but the other pilots [one under training, like Croker, and the