“I got asked if I wanted to buy the club” - Cal Crutchlow on Coventry City

Cal Crutchlow has revealed he was once asked if he wanted to buy Coventry City football club.

The Englishman had trials with both Coventry and Aston Villa before switching to motorcycle racing following a knee injury.

But while Crutchlow was winning MotoGP races in 2016 and 2018, Coventry fell as low as the fourth tier of English football.

“I was at Coventry for a few years, and then I had some injury in my knee, and then I decided to race a motorcycle at the time,” Cal Crutchlow told SunSport.

“So whether I could have been playing football, I don’t know. But I had some good years playing. I love Coventry City as a club.

“Many, many years ago, when I started to do well in MotoGP, I actually got asked if I wanted to buy the club. But I didn’t at the time because I was going racing MotoGP.

“And now they’re in the Premier League… an astonishing turnaround.”

While Crutchlow chose motorcycle racing, a love of football has now been passed on to his ten-year-old daughter Willow.

He said: “She plays football, and she loves football. She’s brilliant at it - she’s super fast. If she could play football seven days a week, she would.

“So we have to try and hold her back a little bit, and I’m glad that that is not motorcycle racing. That’s not to say that I don’t want to get people into motorcycle racing, kids and girls, I do.

“But I just don’t want my own daughter to do it because I’ve seen the ups and the downs of it, like any sport.

“You know, any sport is like that. But I love that she likes football. I used to play football before I raced motorcycles, so I fully support her in whatever she wants to do.

“If she wants to race a motorcycle, I’ll help her, of course. But she loves to watch it. She loves it the same as me; she has a passion for the sport."