Behind The Bravado of Modern British Football - Peter Crouch - #1018

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Do ex-players turn to podcasts because TV punditry feels fake?

**Peter Crouch** (0:08)
God, I felt like I was maybe one of the first to do a podcast. I only did a podcast because I had a book to promote, but it was only. And someone said, I'll do a podcast. And then I genuinely thought no one would listen to it. And then we had a laugh doing it, and I probably said a hell of a lot more than I probably should.
And then I realized people were actually listening. It was one of those where we weren't planning on having a huge following, and then it arrived. And then, I don't know, it was a bit more of the fact that I was being open and honest in a world of football where you're told to be guarded and secretive. It's very much like, don't say the wrong thing. And I think the fact that we were open and honest gave it a platform and people wanted to listen to it. And the punditory stuff, yeah, I think it's a little bit more still in that world of stay guarded, don't say the wrong thing. Whereas podcasts, as you know yourself, you can definitely be yourself a little bit more and show your personality and I think that's obviously the benefit of them.

**Chris Williamson** (1:17)
What is it about the world of football that encourages the players to be so guarded? Because you're right, I have an understanding of the psychology, of the motivation of players from other sports, of rock stars, and football players seem to be very sort of dead outside of the permitted interview at the end of the match, which is 30 seconds long. There's not much going on. Is that prescribed top down? Is that something that's cultural, bottom up? What's going on?

**Peter Crouch** (1:55)
I do think it's changing in a lot of ways, because I think certainly when I was playing, it was very much go into an interview, do a press conference, but don't say anything. I think that bizarrely was our mentality, was I want to come out of this interview having got through it and not said anything too controversial.

**Chris Williamson** (2:14)
Inflammatory.

**Peter Crouch** (2:14)
Anything to wind anyone up. If we've got a derby game on a weekend, I don't want to get their supporters riled up by saying something negative about the other team. I want to go in there and say the plainest answers I can possibly say.

**Chris Williamson** (2:26)
Well, there is a reputation among footballers for giving slightly bland answers. Yeah.

**Peter Crouch** (2:31)
Exactly right. I think there's an element of that. Well, I totally understand because quite often, I think in a world now where players have social media, players can have their own voice, players can get things across, there's certainly a definite shift in it. I think certainly when I was playing and before me, the kind of newspapers ran the media, really. I think something that you say in a newspaper, in a headline, as I'm pretty sure you would know, being on a podcast yourself, if someone takes something you say out of context and puts that in a headline, that can be very different to what you're trying to get across. I think if you're certainly in Britain at that time, most people formed opinions through newspapers.
And I think if I'm saying something tongue in cheek about a player on the opposition side, we all know it's a joke. Everyone in the room knows it's a joke. But if you put that in a headline and make it look like it's not a joke, people can get offended and people's opinion of you will be warped. And I think certainly that was the whole probably reason behind the fact that we don't want to say anything and we're boring. And if most players used to give very boring interviews, I have to think it is changing a lot now. I think certainly with through the world of social media, we can see a lot more of players' personalities, podcasts like this. People do want to come on and you can kind of, you're not just a footballer who does a boring interview at the end of the game. You can be a little bit more than that now.

**Chris Williamson** (4:04)
Well, I think about UFC fighters who maybe more of what they do is outside of the sport, right? Almost all of what they do, boxes too. It is all about the press conference. It's all about the podcast. You know, look at someone like Ariel Helwani, who will have each different fighter from a card that's coming up on UFC or, you know, BKFC or whatever. And that is what they do. And I still, I don't know, are we seeing footballers change because they can now counter the narrative in the mainstream press? They can always just put up an Instagram story or they can address these things directly. Is it your opinion that because you had no direct access to be able to put something out to the fans or to the world, other than, again, through the same newspaper that just said something mean and out of context about you previously, that it meant everyone was a lot more scared about getting stuff wrong?