I’m an England and Premier League legend but crowd laughed at me when I first started playing for how I looked

PETER CROUCH was laughed at by fans when he first started playing because of how he looked.

The England and Premier League legend went on to have a successful career at club and international level.

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Peter Crouch was laughed at by fans at the start of his career[/caption]

However, he was abused by supporters when making his senior debut as a 19-year-old.

Signed by QPR for £60,000 in 2000, Crouch was largely unknown when he lined up as a tall and skinny teenager.

He has now recalled the reception he had from the crowd in his new Amazon Prime Video documentary That Peter Crouch Film.

Crouch explained: “Getting in the first team was one thing.

“Experiencing the level of abuse was something that was new to me and another eye-opener. It was my first season in professional football and we went away to West Brom.

“I came on and I could hear the crowd laughing at me, I could feel it, purely because of the way I looked like, none of them had ever seen me play.”

The former striker was later abused by home supporters during a trip to face Gillingham.

He added: “There was another time away at Gillingham where I got absolutely abused, I think everyone in the crowd was singing songs about me.

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“‘Freak’, ‘does the circus know you’re here?’, it was like I was a joke.”

Crouch went on to score 12 goals in 47 appearances for QPR to earn a £2million move to Portsmouth a year later.

Across his career, he would score 106 goals in 467 Premier League appearances, featuring for the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham.

The 42-year-old also won 42 England caps, scoring 22 times for his country and playing at two World Cups.