Why this hoo-ha over Peter Crouch playing away on his fiancée (allegedly)?

Quite frankly, everyone's disappointed with him.

Disappointed? He's a Premier League footballer! Isn't playing away what footballers do?

Not this footballer. At least, that's what we all thought.

What did you think, exactly?

We thought he was something different; we thought he stood for something decent. With his chirpy cockney accent, his neat side parting and his slightly sticky-out chin, Peter Crouch was a throwback to an older type of footballer, the kind that played professional cricket in summer and drank milk out of trophies and was caricaturised on cigarette cards.

So people thought he was above all the vanities and foibles of the modern footballer?

Right. Also, people are dismayed because Crouch has a beautiful fiancée in Abbey Clancy, so – until the recent allegations – the attitude towards him was: good on you son, despite your, shall we say, physical limitations.

Physical limitations?

I'll put it this way. Peter Crouch is part of a long line of footballers with uncannily descriptive names (vide, Ian Rush, Roy Keane, Terry Butcher). In Peter Crouch's case, this irony is a cruel one: at 6ft7in tall and 0ft1in wide, he's an example of that football stereotype, the 'beanpole striker'.

A 6ft7in striker? He must be pretty handy.

He's not bad with his feet, weirdly. But in the air he has all the grace of a gibbon trying to backflip through a hurricane.

That height's got to be good for something.

He does look pretty cool body-popping under strobe lighting. That talent alone has earned him a starring role in a series of Pringles ads which capitalise on his freakishly gawky figure.

That's a lot of free crisps for the lad.

And a lot of calories which clearly go to waste.