Peter Crouch

I'll be walking down the street with a mate, and someone will stop and say 'All right Crouchy, how's things?' and so on. Once they're gone, the person I'm with will say 'Do you know them?' and I'll say 'I've never met them before in my life'. Happens all the time.

I do a fantastic job for a living: I get to play in front of 90,000, and obviously, everyone knows your name and what have you. But I'm no better than anyone else.

Analysing games on the TV is something that appeals to me, and anything where you watch football and get paid for it is not a bad living!

So many kids want to be football players, and to still feel like I'm living the dream at 37 is amazing.

I'm very aware that you lead a very peculiar existence as a professional footballer, being flown everywhere first-class and never having to queue up for anything. Of course, that's attractive, but if you're not careful, you end up living in a world where nothing is really real.

Nothing can prepare you fully for how harsh football fans can be, but it makes you more robust, able to deal with a lot of what is thrown at you in life.

Des Bulpin discovered me and, along with my dad, would be the biggest influence on my career. I remember him telling me when I was 15 that Jermain Defoe and I would play together for England when we were older, and he hasn't been too far wrong.

In my opinion, whenever I've been given the opportunity to play, I've done well and scored goals, and that will continue to be the case.

When I was a kid, the FA Cup was the one: it was bigger than the European Cup, even. So to win that, for me, and my dad as well - we used to watch it together - was brilliant.

I've got a good record, but maybe, for whatever reason, it's not built up by people. I wouldn't say I'm hard done by. But it's true that I sometimes don't get the praise.

I came from a good family and a nice area, but I went to a rough state school.

I'd like to think I'm an approachable fella, and if someone wants me to pose for a picture, I'll always say 'yes' even when I'm with my family.