Ex-QPR (and Spurs) Coach Des Bulpin on Peter Crouch as Young Player

-
The Guardian -How Mystic Des saw his 'young pony' become a thoroughbred - David Hytner
Des Bulpin just wants England to beat Croatia tomorrow night, to smooth their passage into the Euro 2008 finals with the minimum of fuss. But when the Plymouth Argyle first-team coach casts his eye across England's line-up, he will be reminded of a vote of confidence he once gave to a young Peter Crouch.
Bulpin was on Gerry Francis's coaching staff at Tottenham in the mid-90s and Crouch was struggling as a first-year YTS trainee, all finesse and no brawn, when Bulpin insisted that he saw the future. He told Crouch that one day he would play up front for England.
Few people were talking up Crouch back then. Indeed, Tottenham would allow him to leave in 2000, not convinced that he would make the grade. Yet Bulpin always believed , having first worked with him in the youth ranks at QPR where he remembers him as "like a young pony".
He stood by Crouch throughout his growing pains and when he left QPR with Francis for Tottenham in 1994, he encouraged his new club to take the youngster across London. "When we first got Peter at QPR, he was outstanding on the floor, he had a brain and technique but he just couldn't run," said Bulpin. "But I knew that once Peter got strength, he would be good in the air and become a player. People make mistakes on kids by letting them go before they develop physically. At 17, the weak boy can become just as strong as the others."
Bulpin recalls the taunts that Crouch endured. The other boys would call him "Stick" and Crouch, introverted and conscious of his height, would hunch himself over in an attempt to blend in. Having taken him to Tottenham, the efforts to bulk him up began in earnest. "I gave him a load of milk, yoghurt, porridge, currants and raisins, told him to put it all in a blender and drink it wherever he went," smiled Bulpin. "I don't think he liked it. Then, there was the weights programme we put him on."
When Crouch left Spurs, Francis and Bulpin took him back to QPR in a £60,000 deal, where he scored 12 goals in 2000-01. Global recognition has since followed. "I don't speak to Peter too often these days," he added. "It's like a library book. They are with you for a certain time and then you pass them on to other people."
England are expected to use a five-man midfield tomorrow but if Steve McClaren instead starts Crouch and Jermain Defoe, another Bulpin prophecy of the mid-90s would be realised.
"I could just see it happening, I could see them playing together," he said. "A lot of people were talking about Defoe at the time; I think he was at Charlton, it was just before he moved to West Ham and people were talking about him like they had done with Michael Owen. I'd seen Defoe play and he was very quick, a perfect foil for Peter, in a little-and-large partnership." The Guardian

Also: Crouch on Bulpin
The Observer, Octoebr 28 -"....'Des Bulpin discovered me and along with my dad would be the biggest influence on my career,' Crouch says. 'I remember him telling me when I was 15 that Jermain Defoe and I would play together for England when we were older and he hasn't been too far wrong. We're still in touch, and I'll always have time for Des.'
Guardian

Also Crouch/Daily Mail "My Debt to Spurs" Daily Mail