The striker, who is 6ft 7in, and Alison, who is 5ft, met at the Racing Club in Dubai, where Crouch and his Stoke teammates were on a midseason break. Alison, 24, once dreamt of being a

footballer and had trials with Chelsea and Charlton. But he was turned down because he was too small. ‘Crouchie’, 33, later tweeted the photograph and joked to his followers: “Maybe I

shouldn’t stand next to jockeys.” By last night it had been retweeted 11,000 times.