Footballers’ lives, footballers’ wives, WAGs… don’t we just love them? And their houses are so fascinating. Cast your mind back to those first exterior glimpses of the Beckhams’ Big House No 1, “Beckingham Palace” — aka Rowneybury House, near Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. It was a large 1930s neo-Georgian (“bankers’ Georgian”, they used to call it) nestling in the footballer belt. Remember all the unseemly speculation about whether it would be decorated like their super-gash wedding reception?

Just think of when you first saw a Premier League footballer’s house in Hello! or OK! magazine. Was your reaction middle-class squeamishness of the “They can’t be expected to” variety or straight-out joyous schadenfreude, detailing the comical horrors: the Middle Eastern/eastern European meets Wilmslow gauche glitziness. Whatever you said, you