The Athletic.

Hello, I'm Mark Chapman.

Welcome to the Business and Sport podcast on The Athletic.

Matt Slater with us as usual.

Our guest today is John Texter,

who earlier this year invested almost £90 pounds in the English Premier League side Crystal Palace and in doing so

became a fourth partner and director at the club. Welcome to the Business of Sport podcast, John.

Before we get on to Palace and investing in football and all that comes with that, for everybody

listening just a little bit about your background, first of all.

I don't have, you know, an easily explainable background.

I've had many different sort of periods in my life where I've been, you know, quite a different person.

I think I was very adventurous as a young person.

You know, I loved sport of any sort, anything with a ball or anything with wheels. I enjoyed growing up as a skateboarder. Skateboarding ended up becoming a

pretty big thing for me. I was signed by a professional team, which is one of the

leading skateboard brands in the world at that time. I think I was lucky I had a severe head

injury when I was young, skateboarding. And you can't be afraid when you're doing vertical,

aerial acrobatics and concrete pools. So I went from being very good at what

I was doing to being very afraid to continue doing it. And I told myself, I feel bad about this young

man because I mentioned him a few times. I said, if Tony Somotis ever beats me in competition,

I'm quitting.

And that's exactly what happened, sort of two contests after my head injury.

And true to my word, I quit and I started taking school more seriously.

...