NBC Sports presenter Rebecca Lowe, who also hosts the ‘It’s Called Soccer!’ podcast, has opened up about living near ex-England striker Peter Crouch when she was at school
The Overlap US presenter Rebecca Lowe grew up with Peter Crouch in London (Image: Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)
Running into old-school friends can often be exhilarating, but for Rebecca Lowe, presenter of The Overlap US, it was anything but.
The 44-year-old grew up in west London, a stone’s throw away from former England footballer Peter Crouch’s house. The pair used to walk to school together, albeit on different sides of the road and with different sets of mates in tow.
Communication was limited, with flirtatious glances at the local sweet shop being the only real interaction between the two groups. But unbeknownst to Crouch, Lowe and her pals occasionally prank-called his house in a playful attempt to bridge the gap.
“We used to do really embarrassing things like get phone numbers of the families out of the old phone book and phone them up, then put the phone down because you were so scared,” Lowe said, speaking exclusively to Mirror Football. “We were just such kids.”
The groups went their separate ways after graduation, though Peter and Rebecca would end up crossing paths just a few years later. While Peter was establishing himself as a Premier League footballer, Rebecca was carving out a career as a broadcaster.
She joined the BBC in 2002, and it wasn’t long before she was featuring regularly on shows like Final Score, Football Focus and Match of the Day 2. In 2004, she was sent to Southampton to interview one of the club’s rising stars… Peter Crouch.
“I was like, ‘Oh god! This is going to be awkward. Is he going to remember me?’ Because I guess I was about 22, so it was about four years after [I’d last seen him],” Lowe recalled. “And he did remember me, but even then at 22 it was still a bit embarrassing.”
Lowe says her and her pals would prank-call Crouch’s house when they were teenagers Lowe interviewed Crouch for the first time when he was playing for Southampton He also remembered being prank-called but had no idea who the culprits were. When Lowe told him, he took it – in typical Crouch fashion – in good spirits.
Although Crouch was a sporting prodigy in his youth, he didn’t attract as much ‘attention’ from the girls as his other friends did. In fact, the would-be England striker was consistently rebuffed when Valentine’s Day came around.
“We both grew up a few roads away from each other in a part of Ealing and we went to different schools,” Lowe explained. “From the age of about 11 or 12 until 18, he and his four boy pals, and me and my three of four girl pals would take the same route but to two different schools.
Rebecca Lowe presents the It’s Called Soccer podcast alongside Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher ( Image:
It’s Called Soccer) “In the morning, we’d often time it so that eight of us or nine of us would be in the sweet shop at the same time, but nobody ever talked to each other. He was really good mates with some twins, who he had as his best men at his wedding. Those twins were the talk of the town, shall we say. The talk of the town! So there were Valentine’s cards that would go across, whispered conversations, for years, six or seven years.
“But hilariously, no one talked to each other because how terrifying is that when you’re 14? So we just looked and whispered and sent cards. Peter, unfortunately was not on the receiving end of much of that [laughs]. It was all about Robert and Edward, the twins.”
Crouch, who also played for the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Stoke, endeared himself to fans nationwide with his happy-go-luck attitude, down-to-earth nature, and, of course, his dance moves. To this day, he holds one of the best goals-per-game records of any England forward – with 22 goals in 42 matches – and remains one of the most universally beloved footballing figures in the country.
He and Lowe rubbed shoulders for years, with the latter covering his matches for Setanta Sports and ESPN before leaving the UK to take the reins as lead studio presenter at NBC Sports in 2013. She was pitch-side when Crouch scored arguably the finest goal of his career: a stunning 30-yard volley for Stoke against Manchester City in 2012, and nabbed a memorable interview with him afterwards.
Rebecca Lowe was pitch-side when Peter Crouch scored his iconic goal against Manchester City in 2012 ( Image:
GETTY) Since relocating to the States, the two have lost touch, but Lowe admits she’d love to reconnect – especially now that Crouch is thriving in the broadcast world thanks to his punditry work and the uber-popular ‘That Peter Crouch Podcast’, not to mention her success alongside Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher on The Overlap US show ‘It’s Called Soccer!’.
“Oh my God, where do I sign? That would be amazing,” Lowe gushed when asked if she’d be up for doing a podcast with Crouch. “He’s so brilliant at what he does. I’m such a huge fan. I haven’t seen him in over 10 years, but I used to interview him a lot… One day, maybe I’ll try and get him on the podcast with Gary and Jamie.”
Alongside Gary Neville’s media channel The Overlap, Buzz16 (a Miroma Group Company), co-produces the series, with Wave Sports + Entertainment overseeing sales and distribution in the U.S.
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