Club career Tottenham Hotspur Ĭrouch signed a professional contract with Tottenham Hotspur on 2 July 1998, after having played for their youth team. Later, he told the Liverpool official website that despite this, he and his friends at the time were fans of QPR. As a child, he attended some Chelsea matches. Ĭrouch's family were Chelsea supporters, and he became a ball boy at Stamford Bridge at the age of ten. He did not stay at QPR for long, however, for in November 1994, the coaching staff at Loftus Road moved to Tottenham Hotspur, including its youth team manager Des Bulpin, who offered Crouch a contract at Spurs. Crouch turned down contract offers from Chelsea and Millwall and instead joined Queens Park Rangers in the summer of 1994. He was then invited to join the Brentford Centre of Excellence in 1991 and he also played for the boys club West Middlesex Colts whilst attending Drayton Manor High School. Crouch attended Roxeth Primary and North Ealing Primary and began to play football with Northolt Hotspurs. They then spent time living at a YMCA in Tottenham before settling in Harrow on the Hill. The Crouch family spent three years living in Southeast Asia, and moved back to England after Bruce rejected the chance to work in Australia. The move came about when his father Bruce, originally from Fulham, took up a job offer to work at a Singaporean advertising agency. He retired in July 2019 after the end of his contract.Ĭrouch was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, but his family moved to Singapore when he was one year old. Crouch spent seven-and-a-half years with Stoke, scoring 62 goals before joining Burnley in January 2019. He scored eight in 2012–13 and ten in both the 2013––15 seasons. In his first season with Stoke, he scored 14 goals and won the club's Player of the Year award. He joined Stoke City in August 2011, for a club record fee of £10 million. He scored seven goals in ten European matches for Spurs in 2010–11, but was unable to replicate this form in the Premier League. He scored a vital goal for Tottenham against Manchester City which earned the club a place in the UEFA Champions League. He spent just one season in his second spell at Portsmouth and left for Tottenham Hotspur, where he again linked up with Defoe and Harry Redknapp.
At Liverpool he enjoyed considerable success, winning the FA Cup and FA Community Shield in 2006, and also gaining a runners-up medal in the 2007 UEFA Champions League Final.Īfter scoring 42 goals in three seasons at Anfield, Portsmouth re-acquired Crouch for £11 million, where he forged an effective partnership with fellow England international Jermain Defoe. He had a relatively poor spell at Villa, however, and was loaned out to Norwich City in 2003 before making a move to Southampton, where he regained his form, which would ultimately prompt his joining Liverpool in July 2005. He had a strong first season at Fratton Park, and after scoring 19 goals for the club, he joined Aston Villa in March 2002 for £5 million. After QPR were relegated at the end of the 2000–01 season, Portsmouth acquired him in a transfer deal worth £1.5 million. He failed to make an appearance for Spurs and after loan spells at Dulwich Hamlet and Swedish club IFK Hässleholm he joined Queens Park Rangers. Ĭrouch began his career as a trainee with Tottenham Hotspur. He is one of 32 players to have scored 100 or more Premier League goals, and holds the record for the most headed goals in Premier League history.
He was capped 42 times by the England national team between 20, scoring 22 goals for his country during that time, and appearing at two FIFA World Cup tournaments. Peter James Crouch (born 30 January 1981) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only