Welcome to the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’, the place the one factor lacking is sunshine.
There are luxurious automobiles, fancy eating places, gated mansions and sufficient high-level skilled footballers to create the UK’s most dominant five-a-side league.
‘Elmbridge Borough Council welcomes you to Cobham’, the signal reads as you enter the village made well-known by Chelsea Soccer Membership, whose coaching floor named after this place is a four-minute drive from its excessive road (and really in close by Stoke d’Abernon).
Chelsea moved to Cobham, a part of London’s southern commuter belt, 19 years in the past from Harlington, close to Heathrow Airport on the western outskirts of town. Since then, the village itself and surrounding areas, together with Oxshott, have turn into dwelling to footballers previous and current, the streets — a lot of them non-public roads — lined by multi-million-pound mansions hidden behind safety gates.
Cobham and the encircling space have turn into dwelling to a number of Premier League gamers (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Over the previous twenty years, residents have turn into accustomed to seeing Premier League footballers wandering down the excessive road (Belgium worldwide Eden Hazard was an everyday within the village’s high-end Waitrose grocery store throughout his 2012-19 spell at Stamford Bridge), stopping for a espresso or having fun with a meal in one of many eating places.
Even on the gloomy September morning when The Athletic visits, an array of fancy automobiles — Land Rover Defenders dominate — are passing by or pulling over to park exterior one of many native shops.
Simply over 20 miles south-west from central London, however away from the glare dwelling within the UK capital would convey, Cobham and Oxshott are two of probably the most fascinating — and costly — places within the nation, the place homes commonly promote for thousands and thousands of kilos.
On any given day, you can stumble upon John Terry, the previous Chelsea and England captain, or Sir Andy Murray, the British males’s tennis participant who retired from that sport after the latest Olympics in Paris.
It’s the south of England’s reply to the north’s ‘Golden Triangle’ of villages — Hale, Alderley Edge and Wilmslow — which is dwelling to many Manchester Metropolis and Manchester United footballers.
GO DEEPER
Welcome to the ‘goldplated’ villages the Premier League elite name dwelling
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Nicknamed the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’ due to the variety of celebrities who now name it dwelling, this space has lengthy been in style amongst London-based stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers. There are elite non-public colleges, fancy hair salons, Pilates studios and yoga lessons on the disposal of gamers and their households.
Trevor Kearney, founding father of property firm The Personal Workplace Actual Property, sums up what life is like as a Premier League footballer primarily based round right here: “When you go to Grappelli on a Saturday night time then, regardless of who you might be, there’s at all times somebody extra well-known than you within the room.”
Grappelli, an Italian restaurant solely a few hundred yards away from The Ivy Cobham Backyard, is continuously visited by footballers and, alongside its pasta dishes, is thought for its ebullient front-of-house supervisor, Eddy, who has turn into a good friend to a lot of them.
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Throughout Eddy’s chat with The Athletic over coffee, a number of passers-by cease to say good day, whereas Chelsea participant Cesare Casadei parks his Mercedes on the opposite facet of the highway earlier than disappearing into a store. Eddy says Casadei, a 21-year-old midfielder, is a “good man”.
“Many of the footballers that come listed here are Chelsea gamers,” Eddy says. “A lot of previous gamers nonetheless dwell within the space, so now we have Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Ashley Cole… they’re regulars and good mates with the proprietor.
“We’ve got had John Terry, Ashley Cole, Noni Madueke, (Marc) Cucurella, Roberto Di Matteo, Gianfranco Zola, Andriy Shevchenko, Mauricio Pochettino, Joao Felix, Robert Sanchez… I don’t watch soccer, however I began following it as a result of I wanted to know who they’re!”
Throughout our dialog, Ryan Bertrand, the previous Chelsea and England defender, pulls up in his automotive down the highway. Sure, Eddy is aware of him, too. However with probably the most distinguished gamers away on worldwide responsibility in the meanwhile, this can be a comparatively quiet morning in Cobham.
On the day The Athletic visited, Ahmed Alsanawi, a barber with 1.2 million Instagram followers whose social media posts present him reducing the hair of Hazard, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and Reece James, amongst others, turned up in his yellow Lamborghini Urus.
“It’s stylish, it’s cool, but it surely has all the fitting fundamentals of what makes up an excellent group and setting,” Kearney says of the world. “When Chelsea arrived at Cobham, there was a mandate that the gamers must dwell in a two-and-a-half-mile radius of the coaching floor, in order that meant Cobham and Oxshott has seen a brand new breed and kind of purchaser.
“Hastily, you had this new breed of particular person, wealth and fame injected into it. It reworked it, but it surely was already headed in that route.
“Chelsea didn’t change the market, they only turbo-fuelled it.”
Kearney estimates that round 100 footballers live on this a part of the county of Surrey, together with the cities of Weybridge and Esher just a few miles to the north. A lot of them, significantly these of a Chelsea persuasion, reside close to Cobham, although.
A typical home within the space — the place gated mansions dominate (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
“Chelsea moved right here after which different gamers at totally different golf equipment, let’s say (their west London neighbours) Fulham, who didn’t wish to be in central London, noticed everybody was in Oxshott or Cobham and moved there as a substitute,” Kearney says. “It’s the identical at (south Londoners) Crystal Palace.
“It turned the south’s hub for gamers. When you had been at a north London membership, you’ll keep comparatively north. However in the event you lived extra in the direction of the south, then you definately had been coming to Cobham or Oxshott.
“Even in the event you had been additional south, let’s say at Bournemouth (on the south coast), you’ll dwell in Cobham or Oxshott and commute. I had two mates taking part in for Stoke Metropolis (within the Midlands, north of Birmingham) who lived in Oxshott and acquired the prepare there as a result of the household didn’t wish to transfer because it was the right space for them.
“That reveals the attract and pull of the world.”
It turned widespread for the gamers from different high golf equipment in London, corresponding to Palace, to make Oxshott their dwelling and they might continuously journey to the coaching floor collectively. A Palace contingent of Joel Ward, Gary Cahill, Martin Kelly and Scott Dann, for instance, used to hyperlink up within the mornings, gathering team-mate Jason Puncheon on the close by Reigate junction of London’s orbital M25 motorway alongside the best way.
In keeping with information from Foxtons, a UK-based property company, the common value of a home in Cobham has doubled since Chelsea made this space their dwelling in 2005. On common, homes had been promoting for simply over £600,000 then, in comparison with greater than £1.2million in 2024. The gated enclaves lining the non-public roads and populated by footballers are promoting for far more than that latter determine.
Together with Oxshott, Kearney estimates that footballers are spending round “£4m to £7m” on a home. Homes in Oxshott, although, are, on common, dearer than these in Cobham, which is beneath 4 miles away.
“What Oxshott has is the Crown Property,” Kearney explains. “The Crown Property was as soon as Crown land (property of the Royal household) and has an extremely high-end housing property with values from £3m to £20m. They’re gated enclaves, secure environments, roads that had been run by administration corporations and it’s a super-smart setup.
“Oxshott was in that radius and it has an unimaginable college referred to as Danes Hill. Individuals had been coaching in Cobham and a few minutes up the highway is an incredible place to dwell, with knockout homes and an excellent college, and it really works for them.
“Cobham has just a few of these estates, too, however not as large or as highly effective because the Crown Property. Oxshott has just a little excessive road, but it surely hasn’t acquired an Ivy or a Grappelli’s. Individuals who dwell in Oxshott would go to Cobham for the espresso spots, hair salons and eating places.”
The drive of the Crown Property (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
In 2022, Didier Drogba, the Ivory Coast worldwide striker who left Chelsea in 2015 to play for Montreal in MLS, put his six-bedroom home on the Crown Property up on the market for £6.25million, in response to the UK’s Day by day Mail. In 2014, the identical newspaper additionally reported Terry offered two Oxshott properties for a mixed £21.5m.
Gamers who select to lease as a substitute of shopping for, particularly if they’re arriving from a distinct nation and are reluctant to decide to spending thousands and thousands on a home, are spending anyplace from £15,000 to £30,000 a month. “The rental market is attention-grabbing as a result of there isn’t sufficient adequate inventory to return and lease,” Kearney says. “If I had a home that somebody may transfer into at this time, it will go immediately.”
Relating to a participant getting a mortgage, banks will take into account their profession and trajectory earlier than deciding on the phrases of a deal.
Kearney notes how numerous them can “very simply get high-leverage” mortgages, generally “as much as 100 per cent”. The vast majority of these are unfold over the size of the person’s membership contract, though exceptions could be made if a participant is extra established or fairly clearly on their method to turning into a celebrity.
Apart from a contemporary exterior and inside, together with a sufficiently big backyard to put in a five-a-side pitch — Kearney says this can be a extra widespread request than you could assume — crucial factor house-hunting footballers are in search of is security and safety.
The homes are imposing and value thousands and thousands (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Footballers are sometimes deemed straightforward targets by criminals who will know when a participant is more likely to be at coaching or taking part in in a match, perhaps on the different finish of the nation or probably abroad, attributable to their membership’s schedule and fixture record.
Lately, gamers’ homes have been focused, together with in Oxshott.
Chelsea and England ahead Raheem Sterling’s dwelling was damaged into in December 2022, resulting in him flying again from the World Cup in Qatar.
4 males had been jailed in July 2017 after focusing on Terry’s dwelling in Oxshott in February 2017, as reported by the BBC, with the previous Chelsea defender being instructed by Decide Susan Tapping in court docket that it “may need been a mistake to put up a household {photograph} on social media to point out that he was away on vacation”.
Throughout that raid, the convicted burglars stole greater than £220,000 of jewelry and designer purses price £126,000. “His dwelling was intentionally focused and the master suite suite was ransacked,” Decide Tapping stated.
Sterling returned dwelling from the World Cup in Qatar after his Surrey dwelling was damaged into (Julian Finney/Getty Pictures)
In keeping with police.uk information, from October 2021 to the top of June 2024, 193 housebreaking offences had been dedicated in Cobham and Oxshott, with probably the most prevalent crimes being violence and sexual offences (1,075) throughout the identical interval.
“Security and safety is paramount,” Kearney says. “I’ve additionally acquired an organization that may be a safety service round gamers and that works phenomenally nicely. In case you are shopping for a brand new home, they go in and ensure the fundamentals are proper, corresponding to intercoms, CCTV, and every part like that, but additionally layering further safety relying in your wants.”
Protected rooms, panic buttons and patrol canine have turn into commonplace. “They wish to dwell actually regular, unaffected lives, with the perfect know-how and safety programs of their home,” Kearney says.
Given the main target and a focus positioned on footballers, particularly these taking part in on the highest stage, dwelling an ‘unaffected life’ nearly appears implausible. However in Cobham, Oxshott and the broader Surrey space, that’s one thing they, inside purpose, have been in a position to do. Their fellow native residents have turn into used to seeing them every day, whether or not that’s Terry, who performed 78 instances for England, or the lesser-known ones corresponding to Casadei.
As in Beverly Hills, the Los Angeles district that’s dwelling to actors, singers and different A-list celebrities, a Premier League footballer can flip as much as a grocery store or restaurant in Cobham and, like Kearney says above, there’s a good likelihood they won’t be probably the most well-known particular person there.
(High photographs: Daniel Sheldon/The Athletic; design: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic)