‘I made football debut and could hear crowd laughing because of how I looked’

Premier League legend Peter Crouch has recalled the brutal abuse he received when he made his senior debut for QPR.

Nowadays Crouch is a national hero thanks in part to his club and country career which saw join the English top-flight 100 club and score 22 times in 44 appearances on the international stage.

The 42-year-old has also endeared himself to the general public with his podcast, which has become one of the most popular in the UK since he started hosting alongside Chris Stark in 2018.

But he was a nobody when QPR signed him as a teenager for £60,000 in the summer of 2000 – and his iconic scrawny figure was an easy target for opposition fans.

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Speaking in a clip from That Peter Crouch Film, a new documentary now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Crouch reflected: "Getting in the first team was one thing.

"Experiencing the level of abuse was something that was new to me and another eye-opener. It was my first season in professional football and we went away to West Brom.

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"I came on and I could hear the crowd laughing at me, I could feel it, purely because of the way I looked like, none of them had ever seen me play."

It didn't stop there, with Crouch adding: "There was another time away at Gillingham where I got absolutely abused, I think everyone in the crowd was signing songs about me. 'Freak', 'does the circus know you're here?', it was like I was a joke."

The former Liverpool and Tottenham striker made an immediate impression in west London despite the tough beginnings, scoring 10 goals in the second tier and earning himself a move to Portsmouth after QPR's relegation.

Unfortunately for him, though, he went on to be booed on his Three Lions debut too – as he made it at Old Trafford while he was at Liverpool.

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