He's one of football's good guys — intelligent, honest, funny, refreshingly self-deprecating. Now PETER CROUCH has written a book that perfectly captures all those qualities, beginning with an excruciating encounter with one of his heroes...

Peter Crouch is a columnist for Sportsmail

I've seen football change over the past 20 years. I've been promoted, relegated, won big trophies, gone months without scoring, played for my country at World Cups, been bought, sold, loaned and called 'a freak'. I think I have a good understanding of how it works: the tactics, the transfers and the nights out, the glory nights, the wild celebrations, the times when you can't score even when you're two yards out and the goalkeeper is lying on his back behind you.

And so the time feels right to take you inside this world — past the bouncers, round the velvet rope, into the madness and fun and weirdness of life as a footballer...

I'm 24 years old, I've just been signed by reigning European champions Liverpool — and it has gone to my head. I've bought an Aston Martin and I'm driving round Manchester with the windows down, sunglasses on, elbow resting on the sill, steering with two fingers, speed garage music blasting out of the stereo.

I don't even like speed garage. I'm not sure I like this car. A little voice keeps telling me an Aston Martin really isn't me but a louder voice is telling me that as an England international playing for Liverpool, the old rules no longer apply. Big voice: Peter, you've never looked cooler. Little voice: Peter, you're a monstrous b*ll-e*d.

Peter Crouch was just 24 when he signed for Liverpool, here celebrating against West Brom

And so I'm cruising around, trying to convince myself I look like Steve McQueen or Daniel Craig, ignoring the old Peter telling me I've become everything I swore I wouldn't, and I pull up at a set of traffic lights and there's Roy Keane in his car right next to me.

Ah, there's a man who understands my vibe. Fantastic footballer, winner of multiple titles, cups and the Champions League, captain and heartbeat of Manchester United.

I give him a nod. I give him a wink. I may even point my index finger at him and make a clicking sound at the same time. All of it saying, you and me, eh, Roy? Same game, same level. In it together. Rivals yet friends who just haven't met before. Alright, Roy?

He looks back at me, disgust on his face. He shakes his head and stares ahead. I'm frozen in my pose, grin slipping off my face, and when the lights change and he drives off without a backward glance I'm left there with the handbrake on and an awful realisation: oh my God, I've become one of those t**ts.

Roy Keane is known for being a hard man, he didn't take well to Crouch's flash Aston Martin

I sold the Aston Martin the next day. A £25,000 hit on it, and I considered myself lucky. All because of Roy Keane — Roy, as my absent conscience, a modern-day footballer's spiritual guide.

That moment at that set of traffic lights was the best thing that ever happened to me. Had I kept the car I would have hated myself a little bit more every day. I hadn't realised how quickly I had reached Peak Footballer. I see it now with some of the young lads coming through, making the first-team and within a week getting the hat-trick of tattoo sleeve, sports car and Beats headphones.

You should never get ahead of yourself car-wise; no Merc when you're still in the youth team, no Porsche unless you're a Premier League regular. But it sneaks up on you. That single glance from Roy Keane was a turning point for me; I came crashing back to earth. Thank you, Roy. Maybe he didn't even know it was me. He just thought, there's a t**t. And who could have argued with him?

Did I really just do the robot?

The Robot was instinctive. Sven wanted me in the England team for both my goals and the celebrations. At a time when there was lots of negative press around the national side he thought it brought back the fun, the smiles. 'Keep doing the Robot, it takes the heat off me!'

I scored against Hungary and I just thought, yeah, Robot! I'd never done it before in football. I'd only done it drunk a few times, including at a big party David Beckham held in the build-up to that World Cup. The rest of the lads were roaring off it.

'Crouchie, you've got to do that in a match!' I didn't think I'd be playing and thought it was unlikely that I'd be scoring even if I did get on, so I agreed in that dismissive way you do when you don't think something could happen.

And then I played and I scored and it just happened. Pretty soon I tried to swerve it. It was too calculating, too much a trademark.

Crouch does the Robot celebration on his way to a hat-trick against Jamaica in a friendly

I'll always do it behind closed doors. When I go to the Donna Louise Children's Hospice in Stoke it's clearly coming out every time it's requested. I've done it for Prince William when he came to meet the England squad.

I didn't do it at the 2006 World Cup and I felt a bit of a t**t even doing it [in the warm-up] against Jamaica. I scored two goals, Roboted, got a penalty for my hat-trick and then missed it. Dinked it. Tried to be flash. I was livid. How many chances do you get to score an England hat-trick?

When I finally did complete my hat-trick, the celebration was very different — no Robot, just a frenzied punching of the air and a 'F***ing get in!' Steve McClaren, at that point Sven's assistant manager, came up to me afterwards. What the hell were you doing with the Robot? OK, that's never happening again. Except on drunk nights out. And in a few adverts. And for my 100th Premier League goal.

Only a player could forget his Porsche

Jermaine Pennant had been in Stoke for several weeks when he got a call from his previous club, Real Zaragoza, asking if he knew that he'd left his sports car parked outside the city's train station.

Only a footballer could forget he was missing a Porsche. Particularly one with the registration plate P33NNT. I doubt he caught a train either.

I once walked out of a nightclub with my team-mates to see our star midfielder reclining across the bonnet of a Ferrari, arms folded, waiting for girls to come out so he could wink at them and then progress it from there.

I have no idea how long he'd been waiting. I do know it wasn't even his Ferrari. He'd hired it solely so he could park it directly opposite the nightclub front door and lie on it. I have no idea if it worked as he planned.

Jermaine Pennant left his Porsche in Spain after spending time at Real Zaragoza

I must be only one without a tattoo

Tattoos were supposed to be rebellious. They were supposed to make you look different. Now you're different if you don't have any — they're so popular you don't even notice them. By being everywhere they've almost become invisible. Different, but the same as every other player.

Almost. I played with a lad at Portsmouth who began by having the words 'Different breed' tattooed inside his bottom lip. He followed that up by having 'Pure guns' tattooed on his biceps, with some tattoo bullet-holes to match.

Even David Beckham, as responsible as any footballer for this insane craze, has had issues; he got his wife's name done in Sanskrit, except the artist rendered it as 'Vihctoria'.

David Beckham set the tone for footballers to have a lot of tattoos as they cover his body

Former Villa striker John Carew wanted to make a simple point with his tattoo: 'My life, my rules'. Instead it translates as 'My life, my menstruation'. On his neck! Only in football could this happen.

Bournemouth's Artur Boruc has a monkey drawn on his stomach with its bottom hole where his belly button is but I'm sure he loves it. Goalkeepers in a nutshell.

There are many reasons why I have no ink but the greatest involves regret. I look back at past haircuts and my first thought is usually 'What the hell was I doing?' I look back at jeans and trainers I thought were cool and I think, 'What the hell did I think cool was?' Men have beards and then a few years later are very glad they no longer have them. A moustache that looks magnificent at one age looks absolutely appalling shortly afterwards.

So it is with tattoos. How can you genuinely be confident that you will always like it? If you've got big arms, if you have muscles that ripple, a tattoo in that area draws the eye to it and magnifies the girth and sinew on display, but which part of my body do I actually want to draw attention to? There's not a great deal there to work with. My biceps are not humongous. My pecs... not great. Calves? Not huge... I've got nice hands, I reckon. They're not bad.

John Carew has a tattoo on his neck that says: 'My life, my menstruation' instead of 'my rules'

I could probably get quite a bit of writing down my thigh. It would have to be a short font but the sentence could be a long one. I could get every team I've ever played for down my arm: Spurs, rendered as Tottenham Hotspur; QPR, as Queens Park Rangers; Portsmouth, twice; Aston Villa; Norwich City, with 'loan' in brackets.

And yet for the modern footballer the tattoo has become a staple. It's as if you can't be a professional player unless you have them.

One young lad at Stoke had a huge work done when he signed his first pro contract.

It was him, standing by a wall, holding a football and a pen, his mum and dad next to him, his squad number and the date he signed all there. All mapped out — but what if he doesn't make it? Signing a contract doesn't mean that you will make the first team, stay in the first team or have a career in football. What if he ends up working in a bank? Maybe he'll get a tat of him shaking hands with the bank's HR officer on his stomach.

Naked Ronaldo's mirror boast

Rio Ferdinand would tell us stories about how Cristiano Ronaldo would stand in front of the mirror naked, running his hand through his hair, and say, 'Wow. I'm so beautiful!'

The other United players would try to wind him up. 'Whatever. Leo Messi is a better player than you.' And he would shrug his shoulders and smile again. 'Ah yes. But Messi does not look like this...'

Cristiano Ronaldo used to get abuse at training for standing in front of the mirror naked

The day I rapped on stage with Barnes

To all those who would say that footballers should never be allowed near a mic, I have two words: John and Barnes. He has still got it, too.

I saw him a few years ago in Dubai up on stage at an event in a hotel. Everyone else was sitting down. I was staring around in amazement.

'This is a disgrace! You've got John Barnes up there doing his rap from World In Motion!' There was no way I was going to accept a reaction like that, even if he had been rubbish, and he wasn't. Take it from me, John Barnes is good live.

So I marched to the front, singing along with him, and then he spots me and invites me up on to the stage, and suddenly the two of us are doing it together. It was a special moment. Since then we've holidayed together. That's what John Barnes and his rap can do.

John Barnes and Peter Crouch holiday together after he got up on stage and rapped with him

A bloody pig's head left in the locker

There was a dark period at Stoke in 2013 that began innocently enough with Matty Etherington getting his new leather jacket flushed down the toilet. It quickly got out of hand.

Etherington decided to take his revenge by taking a load of mouldy fish-bits and putting them in Jon Walters's shoes and car, who he suspected of the jacket theft. Walters escalated it by getting a severed pig's head from a local butcher's — still covered in blood — wrapping it in Matty's jeans and putting it in his locker.

Matty found it and put it in Glenn Whelan's, except rather than Glenn Whelan's he accidentally put it in Kenwyne Jones's. Before you know it, Kenwyne has lost the plot and is putting a brick through Glenn's car window, and Glenn is threatening to go round Kenwyne's house.

Jon Walters (left) took things too far at Stoke when he left a pig's head in Etherington's locker

I became football's Alan Partridge

Villa wanted to persuade me to sign. As negotiations went on I was put up at the Belfry Hotel. My room was incredible. The Brabazon Suite, overlooking the 18th green. I walked in with my dad and thought, this is unreal. My dad winked at me. Oh yes, son. We've arrived now...

I signed. I drove back to the hotel. I walked past reception. Hello, sir, the club have asked us to move you to a different room. Oh, OK. Key in the door. Almost banging my nose on the opposite wall, the only thing stopping me tripping over the single bed being the ironing board that took up the remaining floorspace. It was smaller than the bathroom in the Brabazon Suite.

I stayed in that room for three months, except when the Ryder Cup was on, when I had to move out even of that. It got so lonely I'd go out driving by myself, not aiming to get to anywhere, simply aiming to get away from the single bed and my reflection in the mirror. I'd look for places that had weird names.

Crouch has admitted he had a tough time living on his own in a small hotel room at Villa

I'd end up at a fast-food drive-thru, get a burger and drive back to the Belfry, sitting there on the bed with my quarter-pounder and fries. It got grim fast. I was going loopy even faster. I became institutionalised. I expected my towels to be folded each morning and to return after training to a chocolate on my pillow.

I became a footballing Alan Partridge. I was on first-name terms with staff. I ate in the on-site carvery so often, every day was like Sunday. Some evenings I'd sit in the resort nightclub with a pot of tea, just to hear loud dance music rather than having to watch bad TV in my room.

The footballer who didn't like football

Benoit Assou-Ekotto, my former Spurs team-mate, was not only not interested in football, he genuinely didn't like it. At 1.30pm on a Saturday he'd have no idea which team you were playing.

'But Benoit, we've been talking about them in training all week...' And so to his pre-match meal. Now none of us are adventurous. It's pasta, chicken, no sauce, and has been for the past 20 years. Benoit would turn up with a Tesco's bag containing the same four items every time: a croissant, a hot chocolate, a full-fat Coke and a packet of crisps.

Benoit Assou-Ekotto didn't like football, he would eat croissants, crisps and coke before games

The croissant I understood. He is French-Cameroonian. The hot chocolate: same cultural backstory. He used to dip the first into the second. But the crisps, and the Coke — it was like two discrete lunches, one belonging to a middle-aged Parisian and the other a 12-year-old on the Seven Sisters Road.

And it worked. He was always in great shape and rarely injured. We accepted it, along with all the other weirdness: the random cars he would turn up to training in, sometimes a Smart car, then a Lamborghini; the way he would refuse to take ice baths for recovery, on the rather basic premise that they were 'too cold'.

Trying it on with a team-mates girl!

On signing for Liverpool I stayed at the Hope Street Hotel. On reception was a girl so good-looking I couldn't quite believe she was smiling at me all the time.

I told the lads in training. 'Honestly, she's beautiful. I think I've got a shout here.' Jamie Carragher called a few other senior players over. 'Tell them again, Crouchie.' So I did. 'She's all over me. I'm on fire.' Carra again, all interest. 'What does she look like?'

'Amazing. Dark-haired. Spanish-looking. I'm in there.' It turned out she was Xabi Alonso's partner. She was doing a bit of work to practise her language skills. He was nice about it. So was she. Carra less so.

Crouch accidentally tried it on with Xabi Alonso's partner when he joined Liverpool

When Rafa tried to be a cool cat

You might recall the period at Liverpool when Rafa Benitez started wearing a leather jacket. It was around the same time as the emergence of his goatee and the Doc Marten shoes.

There was a theory in the dressing room that he was trying to compete with Jose Mourinho, at the time considered the coolest, most stylish man in the Premier League. The leather jacket was never him. Word was his wife had pushed him in that direction, that he was never happy wearing it.

So that Christmas, when we had a Secret Santa and I drew Rafa, I got him two things: Mourinho's biography and a new leather jacket. You should have seen his expression when he opened the gifts. His face just fell. Oh no, I thought. I've actually offended him. I never told him it was from me. Until now. Sorry, Rafa.

Crouch bought Rafa Benitez (left) a Jose Mourinho biography and coat for Secret Santa

We didn't have to massage Sol's ego

Sol Campbell used to get a two-hour massage at Portsmouth. He would be flat out until two minutes before training. We had two masseurs. Sol would hog them: the first working one of his enormous legs, the second kneading furiously at the other.

We'd throw him abuse as we walked past. 'Any chance, Sol?' He'd raise his head briefly and look expressionless. 'When you've got 70 caps for England, come back and talk to me again.'

During Crouch's time at Portsmouth he could never get a massage with Sol Campbell around

©Peter Crouch, 2018.

Abridged extract from How To Be A Footballer by Peter Crouch which is published by Ebury Press, priced £20.

Offer price £16 (20 per cent discount, with free p&p) until September 18.

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