There are former players who have ditched the glitz and glamour of the global sports business for the nitty-gritty of life as a fireman, van driver or even an undertaker, while other pros have replaced one high-flying role for another as hedge fund managers and Hollywood heroes.

What you realise, as you laugh out loud, is that football has been taken too seriously by too many people for too long. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. Bringing their own unique and counter-balanced personalities to proceedings they ask questions such as: what is happiness?Imagine having three life-coaches who had been through the toughest mental and physical challenges; a crack team of problem-solvers who knew in their day job that one mistake could be the difference between life - and death. In The Coldest Case: A Black Book Audio Drama, homicide detective Billy Harney sends his new partner, Kate, deep undercover in a notorious Chicago drug ring.

The anecdotes both funny, Tina Asprilla’s condom range has got be seen to be believed, as Peter suggests, google it and look at the expression on his face on the box! How do you cope with life after one of the best jobs possible and the twin highs of competition and earning almost unfathomable amounts of money? Titled The Troubled, Crouch explores the darker side of retirement and reflects on those whose paths in and beyond football have been more problematic. However How to be an Ex Footballer as well as having its expected fill of funny anecdotes also has a darker side.Shame he didn’t narrate the audiobook, and the narrator didn’t differentiate very clearly between Crouch talking and his interviewees talking which made it hard to follow at times.

A surprisingly good read considering that I am not a great football fan but I have to say I enjoyed this book enormously. Some are obvious; coaching, managing, punditry but some are more diverse such as Timo Apsrilla developing his own brand of condoms or Gavin Peacock turning his back on the game to become a church minister in Canada. This is the subject of Peter Crouch's third book How To Be An Ex-Footballer (2022) where the ex-Liverpool and England star discusses his own transition into media success but dives deep into case studies of other former pros stories, what options they had and the various roads they've taken.Across 16 Chapters and 275 Pages, Peter Crouch builds the reader a picture of the character that he has come to know through tales from throughout his career, or his perception and experience from afar for others, during their “main and more famous career” of being a footballer. Peter talks to entrepreneurs, men of the cloth, eco warriors, artists, private detectives and budding actors, as well as those who've lost their way in addiction, crime and NFTs.