Peter Crouch joins the panel for a new series of ITV’s The Masked Singer

And the new judge on The Masked Dancer is… Peter Crouch! ‘I know, it’s mad,’ laughs the former footballer, as surprised as anyone that this is happening. ‘There have been times when I’ve looked around me at the dancers and the crazy costumes and it’s been like an out-of-body experience. I’ve been thinking, ‘How on earth did I get here?’

But there are three very good reasons why the 41-year-old ex-England, Liverpool and Stoke player will sit alongside Jonathan Ross, Davina McCall and Strictly legend Oti Mabuse as they try to figure out who the celebrities dancing around in outlandish disguises are. 

‘First and foremost, I’m doing this because my kids love the show,’ says Peter, a famously tall, angular man who, despite looking really unusual on the pitch, played 42 times for England and scored more than 100 Premier League goals before retiring three years ago at the grand old age of 38. 

‘They have no interest in any of the football stuff, so this is the first thing I’ve ever done where they were actually really proud and had questions every time I came home.’

‘I know, it’s mad,’ laughs the former footballer (pictured left on the show), as surprised as anyone that this is happening. ‘There have been times when I’ve looked around me at the dancers and the crazy costumes and it’s been like an out-of-body experience’

To be fair, his boys Jack and Johnny are only three and four. Daughters Liberty and Sophia are seven and 11. Their mother is the model and presenter Abbey Clancy, who won Strictly Come Dancing back in 2013, so has more than a few moves herself.

‘As soon as the kids knew I was on The Masked Dancer, I was a hero all of a sudden,’ says Peter.

The series was launched last year after the success of its sister show The Masked Singer and was won by Olympic gymnast Louis Smith (who preceded Abbey as Strictly champion) as the character Carwash. Peter is replacing comedian Mo Gilligan, who’s on tour. 

Twelve celebrities will dance in disguise as Sea Slug, Astronaut and Pearly King, among others, and Peter took his young family to the studio to see some of the recording. ‘They loved it and wanted to come back every day. Then they were like, ‘Who is Scissors? Who is the Spaceman?’

The dancers are only unmasked after being eliminated, but judges are sworn to secrecy until the series goes out. So has that meant deceiving his kids? ‘Yeah, it’s been tough,’ he says, chuckling.

Fellow football pundits Teddy Sheringham and Glenn Hoddle have appeared on The Masked Singer, so were there any familiar faces competing this time? ‘There were people I knew, which was weird. But knowing someone doesn’t guarantee you can guess their identity when they’re in disguise.’

What about those he’d never heard of, like young soap stars? ‘I’m not in that world. It might be someone from a show I don’t watch.’ That must be a bit awkward? ‘You just say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it was you!’ And he laughs, because Peter Crouch is an affable, likeable bloke and a quick thinker – which brings us to the second reason he’s on The Masked Dancer. 

Peter analyses games for BT Sport and has led a new generation of pundits such as Micah Richards who are more relaxed, but is there not still cause to be careful with cancel culture lurking? ‘I know how fortunate I am, because this could all end just like that,’ he agrees

He thought about coaching after giving up playing in 2019 but was instead blown away by the unexpected success of That Peter Crouch Podcast, in which he just chats with his mates. His cheeky, easy style has won Crouchy millions of fans, including those who don’t even like football.

‘I’m glad people have been able to see I’ve got a bit of humour and personality,’ he says. ‘It’s kept under the radar in football –there’s a sort of guarded mentality that gets instilled in you as a young player. You don’t want to be the headline, so you try to say as little as possible. The goal is to come out unscathed.’

Peter analyses games for BT Sport and has led a new generation of pundits such as Micah Richards who are more relaxed, but is there not still cause to be careful with cancel culture lurking? ‘I know how fortunate I am, because this could all end just like that,’ he agrees. 

‘Especially in this day and age. You’ve only got to say the wrong thing once and that’s it.’ Is that scary? ‘Without doubt. I think it’s the same for everyone. Comedians used to get a lot of laughs from shock tactics, but that’s changed. You’ve got to choose your words very carefully now. And when you do live television, you’ve got to be on your toes at all times.’

The BBC obviously trusts him, because when all major sporting events were cancelled during the lockdown summer of 2020 it put out a show called Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer, which was basically Crouchy having a laugh with a band, a comedian and some guests. 

Viewers loved it. He’s 6ft 7in and says his wit was honed as a youngster by having to deflect taunts about the way he looked. ‘I love my height, I wouldn’t be me without it. I didn’t just shoot up, I’ve always been the tallest. A lot of my personality has come from that.’

The son of an advertising man, he grew up in Singapore and then west London – and was always head and shoulders above the rest. ‘Kids take the mickey out of each other, right? You’re tall or you’ve got big ears, whatever, you get ripped. My defence mechanism was to laugh at myself before they could laugh at me. I’d always have something to say back.’

Some coaches said he looked too weird to be a proper player, but he proved them wrong. Even now, the ‘jokes’ keep coming. ‘I had the same from the driver on the way here: ‘Do you want me to open the sun-roof?’ I’ve heard it so many times, but I guess people who haven’t heard it find it really funny.’

As a famous player, he found an unusual way to respond to fans making quips like that. ‘I had little cards printed with all the answers to the ‘funny’ questions they were about to ask. 

‘The weather’s not different up here.

‘No, I don’t play basketball.

‘As they start to ask, you just give them the card.’ 

He cackles at the memory. ‘It was good but I only did it when I was drunk.’

The truth is, he’s too good-natured to have kept that up for long. And the third reason Peter Crouch finds himself a judge on The Masked Dancer is that he once enjoyed himself with a little dance at a party. 

Not just any party, mind: this was the lavish bash David Beckham threw for his England team-mates before they headed off to Germany for the World Cup in 2006.

A charity auction run by Graham Norton saw Wayne Rooney paying £150,000 for a weekend with P Diddy in New York, and none other than the Godfather Of Soul James Brown played live – and it was during this performance that cameras caught Crouchy throwing some shapes. 

‘I’d had a few drinks and I said to the lads, ‘I’m going to do something stupid on the way to the toilet.’ So as I walked through the dance floor I did the robot.’

You know the dance: stick out your elbows and move jerkily like a mechanical person. When a documentary on the party was broadcast the night before an England game, the team were watching. 

‘The lads were like, ‘That’s hilarious, if you score tomorrow you’ve got to do it.’

He came on as a substitute against Hungary and got a goal. ‘I didn’t even think about it, I just did the dance. It exploded. Next morning it was on CNN, Sky News, BBC, ITV. 

They even had body-poppers in New York showing me where I was going wrong.’ Soon it was a national craze, copied on every dance floor and playground and even by James Corden in character as Gavin And Stacey’s Smithy. 

Peter retired the move after a hat-trick against Jamaica, not bringing it out again until he scored his 100th Premier League goal in 2017, but people still know him for it. 

‘Even now, kids as young as nine ask me to do the robot. I say yes if it’s little kids, but mostly I say no. It was a funny, magical thing but I don’t want it to become boring.’ 

Even at a wedding after a few drinks? ‘Well, obviously in the right situations you’ve got to pull it out!’

If he’s going to judge others, how good a dancer is Peter Crouch? ‘Late in the evening, ten out of ten,’ he says, tongue in cheek. ‘Early on, it’s more of a shuffle. Abbey says I’m very good at dancing off the beat.’

They met at a bar in Liverpool in 2006 and made an unlikely couple at first – the beauty who was competing to be Britain’s Next Top Model (she was runner-up) and the bloke who later confessed he thought she was out of his league. Peter even joked he’d still be a virgin if he wasn’t a footballer.

Abbey has made no secret of hating the game, but calls him her soul mate and the love of her life. They were married in June 2011, a few months after the birth of their first child, Sophia. 

Then there was a four-year pause before another baby while Abbey pursued a TV career that received a massive boost when she won Strictly in 2013 with her dance partner Aljaz Skorjanec. ‘Abs was incredible,’ says Peter. ‘I would have loved to keep up with her, but ballroom is not my type of dance. I just mess about. She needs a professional to dance with her.’

‘First and foremost, I’m doing this because my kids love the show,’ says Peter, a famously tall, angular man. ‘They have no interest in any of the football stuff, so this is the first thing I’ve ever done where they were actually really proud and had questions every time I came home’

His agent says the BBC asks him to do Strictly every year, but Peter says, ‘I don’t think I could possibly do it now after she won it. There are only so many robots you can do!’

Peter Crouch is someone who counts his blessings. ‘I’m in a privileged position. I’ve never had to have a job where I’ve gone, ‘Oh no, I have to go to work today.’ Every day, since I was 16 and left school, I’ve woken up and thought, ‘Great!’

He still plays five-a-side with his friends, but of joining the Liverpool Legends team he says, ‘I need to play more before I do that because 70,000 people watch those games. I haven’t ballooned in weight since I stopped playing professionally and I’m quite fit, but I’m not on the level I was. Nowhere near.’ 

What about dancing on the new show? ‘There was a routine for all the judges to do,’ he says, grimacing. ‘I got a choreographer. It was at that moment I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ But I think I nailed it.’

Of course. Peter Crouch is a man with confidence in his own abilities, having been proving people wrong since he was a boy. ‘You can’t be shy and retiring, the other judges are big characters. So am I. It’s got me this far, I’m not going to change.’

The Masked Dancer, Saturday, 6.30pm, ITV.