The Athletic

Hello and welcome to the TIFO football podcast. I am John McKenzie. Joe Devine is dead. Long live the king.

But joining me today is Joe Devine. Hello there. How are you? I'm dead. It's been a while.

Well, it's been at least two weeks, yeah. And you are back because you have recorded a very special episode for us. That's right, John. So what I've done is I've anointed you king of the podcast, and then I've come here to take from you the very first special episode, which is with me, Ruben Pinder joined me as well,

as a wingman, and we spoke to Peter Crouch this morning, which was actually thoroughly exciting.

Yeah, that is exciting, and I think you had quite an interesting topic to talk to Peter Crouch about,

right?

Yeah, he's made a film.

It's called That Peter Crouch film.

It's a documentary. It's on Prime Video. And it's about his career. I didn't really know what to expect, to be honest, when they reached out to us. But they sent us the film, which comes out today, so it's available to watch now. And it's great. It's about adversity, really. and it takes you sort of through Peter Crouch's career,

but it does it through the lens of the struggles that he experienced at various different points.

And it does really bring home to, I think, how much shit he had to put up with as a young player,

because he's very tall, he's unusual looking, doesn't look like other footballers,

he definitely heard that from the crowd, he definitely heard that from journalists, he heard it

all the way through his career until he proved himself as an England first team player.

So the level that this guy as a footballer had to go to to win over the crowd is quite astonishing.

And also he experiences adversity from other areas of his life as well, and which the film focuses on. So I speak to him about that for 40 minutes. Yeah, and I think adversity is something that all footballers face and they don't often get the chance to talk about it on the level that Peter Crouch has done both in terms of this film, but also this podcast. So I'm really looking forward to hearing what you guys had to say. I'm looking forward to you hearing what I had to say, and Peter Crouch, but

mainly me. Joe and I will be back after the episode to introduce you to producer Mike and give you a

sense of what's coming up on this podcast, but until then, here's Peter Crouch, welcome to the Tifo football podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Listen, we're really delighted to have you, and we're here today to talk about a number of things,

but part of that will be your film, which is coming out on Prime Video,

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