Property website Zoopla has created a league table of the most sought after WAG pad locations in England. Top of the table is Oxshott in Surrey. The area is home to Mr and Mrs Terry, the Redknapps and Didier Drogba. The average value of homes in this exclusive area is £1.4m.
A few miles along the road one finds Esher and Cobham, still within easy distance of the Chelsea training ground which must have been one factor in the location decisions. Average house prices are slightly lower here at around £750,000.
Property website Zoopla has created a league table of the most sought after WAG pad locations in England. Top of the table is Oxshott in Surrey. The area is home to Mr and Mrs Terry, the Redknapps and Didier Drogba. The average value of homes in this exclusive area is £1.4m.
A few miles along the road one finds Esher and Cobham, still within easy distance of the Chelsea training ground which must have been one factor in the location decisions. Average house prices are slightly lower here at around £750,000.
Second in the overall table is Hampstead at £875,000. The airy North London suburb once had a leftist tinge, but these days the bankers who live there mingle with Arsenal stars such as Robin van Persie.
Properties up north cost less and the highest-placed northern town to feature in the league is Prestbury in Cheshire at No.5, which is home to the Rooneys. The average price of a house here is £642,129. This average price could rise if the home of Carlos Tévez, previously owned by Cristiano Ronaldo, goes on the market for an expected £5m. That also reminds us tha we are talking of average prices here and not that paid by an individual footballer.
Bottom of the league is Liverpool. Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher live in Formby where the average price of a property is £262,475. But no doubt their pads cost a lot more.
It’s a long way from the days when players lived in club houses which were usually 1930s semi-detached houses. Some clubs even had them built by the ground. Or they had a whole row of them as Spurs did at Roedean Avenue in Enfield. They were, of course, tied cottages and when the job went, the house went as well.
Garry Imlach has an interesting chapter on club houses in his book My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes. As Imlach notes, ‘It was sound business for the clubs – they could assemble a portfolio of property, get a rental return on their investmen and help contribute to a stable home life for their key performers … the eviction clause in the standard tenancy agreement also gave them a handy trump card in the event of any disputes.’