Walking Tall

He is 6ft 7in tall but Peter Crouch's height is not the only thing that makes the Liverpool and England striker different: he has a football story like no other player in the modern game. Crouch has risen from humble beginnings at non-league Dulwich Hamlet on loan, and a GBP60,000 transfer to Queens Park Rangers, to be an England striker and the first to score ten international goals in a calendar year. His career has not been the smooth journey from teen prodigy to Premiership star enjoyed by so many of his England team-mates. Booed by England fans in October 2005, Crouch had the same supporters on their feet with a hat-trick for his country eight months later. Walking Tall is about a footballer who has always found himself under intense scrutiny -- for the way he looks as much as his ability on the pitch. Crouch's story is also about his constant battle to win over the doubters. He talks about the managers who have backed him -- as well as those who have written him off -- and relives the pain of rejection at Aston Villa, contrasted with the elation of his GBP7 million transfer to Liverpool just one year later in the summer of 2005.
Crouch was a key figure in England's 2006 World Cup campaign and in Walking Tall he talks about his famous robot dance as well as the goals and the disappointments of that summer in Germany. For Crouch, the journey continues under Rafael Benitez at Anfield and with Steve McClaren's England team. Funny, honest and open, Walking Tall is the story of an unlikely hero.