Welcome to the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’, the place the one factor lacking is sunshine.
There are luxurious vehicles, 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 avenue (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 the town. Since then, the village itself and surrounding areas, together with Oxshott, have turn into residence to footballers previous and current, the streets — lots of them personal roads — lined by multi-million-pound mansions hidden behind safety gates.
Cobham and the encircling space have turn into residence to a number of Premier League gamers (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Over the previous 20 years, residents have turn into accustomed to seeing Premier League footballers wandering down the excessive avenue (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 vehicles — Land Rover Defenders dominate — are passing by means of 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 essentially 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 could possibly 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 residence to many Manchester Metropolis and Manchester United footballers.
GO DEEPER
Welcome to the ‘goldplated’ villages the Premier League elite name residence
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Nicknamed the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’ due to the variety of celebrities who now name it residence, this space has lengthy been in style amongst London-based stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers. There are elite personal colleges, fancy hair salons, Pilates studios and yoga courses 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: “In the event you go to Grappelli on a Saturday night time then, irrespective of who you’re, there may be all the time 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 ceaselessly visited by footballers and, alongside its pasta dishes, is thought for its ebullient front-of-house supervisor, Eddy, who has turn into a buddy to lots of them.
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Throughout Eddy’s chat with The Athletic over coffee, a number of passers-by cease to say hi there, whereas Chelsea participant Cesare Casadei parks his Mercedes on the opposite facet of the street earlier than disappearing into a store. Eddy says Casadei, a 21-year-old midfielder, is a “good man”.
“A lot of the footballers that come listed below are Chelsea gamers,” Eddy says. “Numerous outdated gamers nonetheless dwell within the space, so we now have Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Ashley Cole… they’re regulars and good mates with the proprietor.
“We have now 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 street. Sure, Eddy is aware of him, too. However with essentially the most outstanding gamers away on worldwide responsibility for the time being, it is 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 fashionable, it’s cool, but it surely has all the precise fundamentals of what makes up an amazing 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.
“Impulsively, you had this new breed of individual, 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 simply 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 need to be in central London, noticed everybody was in Oxshott or Cobham and moved there as an alternative,” Kearney says. “It’s the identical at (south Londoners) Crystal Palace.
“It turned the south’s hub for gamers. In the event you have been at a north London membership, you’ll keep comparatively north. However in case you lived extra in the direction of the south, then you definitely have been coming to Cobham or Oxshott.
“Even in case you have 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 obtained the practice there as a result of the household didn’t need to transfer because it was the right space for them.
“That exhibits the attract and pull of the world.”
It turned frequent for the gamers from different high golf equipment in London, corresponding to Palace, to make Oxshott their residence and they’d ceaselessly 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, amassing team-mate Jason Puncheon on the close by Reigate junction of London’s orbital M25 motorway alongside the best way.
In response to information from Foxtons, a UK-based property company, the typical worth of a home in Cobham has doubled since Chelsea made this space their residence in 2005. On common, homes have been promoting for simply over £600,000 then, in comparison with greater than £1.2million in 2024. The gated enclaves lining the personal 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 below 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 have 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 have been coaching in Cobham and a few minutes up the street is a tremendous 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 massive or as highly effective because the Crown Property. Oxshott has slightly excessive avenue, but it surely hasn’t obtained 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 bought two Oxshott properties for a mixed £21.5m.
Gamers who select to lease as an alternative 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 wherever 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 come back and lease,” Kearney says. “If I had a home that somebody may transfer into right this moment, it will go immediately.”
In terms of 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”. Nearly all of these are unfold over the size of the person’s membership contract, though exceptions will be made if a participant is extra established or fairly clearly on their technique to changing into a celebrity.
Apart from a contemporary exterior and inside, together with a large enough backyard to put in a five-a-side pitch — Kearney says it is a extra frequent request than you might assume — an important factor house-hunting footballers are on the lookout for 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, possibly on the different finish of the nation or probably abroad, as a result of their membership’s schedule and fixture checklist.
In recent times, gamers’ homes have been focused, together with in Oxshott.
Chelsea and England ahead Raheem Sterling’s residence was damaged into in December 2022, resulting in him flying again from the World Cup in Qatar.
4 males have been jailed in July 2017 after concentrating on Terry’s residence in Oxshott in February 2017, as reported by the BBC, with the previous Chelsea defender being informed by Choose Susan Tapping in court docket that it “may need been a mistake to submit a household {photograph} on social media to indicate 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 residence was intentionally focused and the master suite suite was ransacked,” Choose Tapping stated.
Sterling returned residence from the World Cup in Qatar after his Surrey residence was damaged into (Julian Finney/Getty Photographs)
In response to police.uk information, from October 2021 to the top of June 2024, 193 housebreaking offences have been dedicated in Cobham and Oxshott, with essentially 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 obtained an organization that could be a safety service round gamers and that works phenomenally effectively. 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 thing like that, but in addition layering further safety relying in your wants.”
Secure rooms, panic buttons and patrol canine have turn into commonplace. “They need to dwell actually regular, unaffected lives, with the perfect expertise and safety programs of their home,” Kearney says.
Given the main target and a spotlight positioned on footballers, particularly these taking part in on the highest degree, dwelling an ‘unaffected life’ virtually appears implausible. However in Cobham, Oxshott and the broader Surrey space, that’s one thing they, inside purpose, have been capable of do. Their fellow native residents have turn into used to seeing them each day, whether or not that’s Terry, who performed 78 occasions for England, or the lesser-known ones corresponding to Casadei.
As in Beverly Hills, the Los Angeles district that’s residence 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 probability they won’t be essentially the most well-known individual there.
(High pictures: Daniel Sheldon/The Athletic; design: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic)
