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).
Advertisement 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. 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 sou.