Welcome to the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’, where the only thing missing is sunshine.
There are luxury cars, fancy restaurants, gated mansions, and enough high-level professional footballers to create the United Kingdom’s most dominant five-a-side league.
‘Elmbridge Borough Council welcomes you to Cobham,’ the sign reads as you enter the village made famous by Chelsea Football Club, whose training ground named after this place is a four-minute drive from its high street (and actually in nearby Stoke d’Abernon).
Chelsea moved to Cobham, part of London’s southern commuter belt, 19 years ago from Harlington, near Heathrow Airport on the western outskirts of the city. Since then, the village itself and surrounding areas, including Oxshott, have become home to footballers past and present, the streets — many of them private roads — lined by multi-million-pound mansions hidden behind security gates.
Cobham and the surrounding area have become home to a host of Premier League players (Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Over the past two decades, residents have become accustomed to seeing Premier League footballers wandering down the high street (Belgium international Eden Hazard was a regular in the village’s high-end Waitrose supermarket during his 2012-19 spell at Stamford Bridge), stopping for a coffee or enjoying a meal in one of the restaurants.
Even on the gloomy September morning when The Athletic visits, an array of fancy cars — Land Rover Defenders dominate — are passing through or pulling over to park outside one of the local stores.
Just over 20 miles south-west from central London, but away from the glare living in the UK capital would bring, Cobham and Oxshott are two of the most desirable — and expensive — locations in the country, where houses regularly sell for millions of pounds.
On any given day, you could bump into John Terry, the former Chelsea and England captain, or Sir Andy Murray, the British men’s tennis player who retired from that sport after the recent Olympics in Paris.
It is the south of England’s answer to the north’s ‘Golden Triangle’ of villages — Hale, Alderley Edge, and Wilmslow — which is home to many Manchester City and Manchester United footballers.
GO DEEPER
Welcome to the ‘goldplated’ villages the Premier League elite call home
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
Nicknamed the ‘Beverly Hills of Britain’ due to the number of celebrities who now call it home, this area has long been popular among London-based stockbrokers and hedge-fund managers. There are elite private schools, fancy hair salons, Pilates studios, and yoga classes at the disposal of players and their families.
Trevor Kearney, founder of property company The Private Office Real Estate, sums up what life is like as a Premier League footballer based around here: “If you go to Grappelli on a Saturday night then, no matter who you are, there is always someone more famous than you in the room.”
Grappelli, an Italian restaurant only a couple of hundred yards away from The Ivy Cobham Garden, is frequently visited by footballers and, alongside its pasta dishes, is known for its ebullient front-of-house manager, Eddy, who has become a friend to many of them.
(Dan Sheldon/The Athletic)
During Eddy’s chat with The Athletic over coffee, several passers-by stop to say hello, while Chelsea player Cesare Casadei parks his Mercedes on the other side of the road before disappearing into a shop. Eddy says Casadei, a 21-year-old midfielder, is a “good guy”.