A world away from Wagsville: Ex-footballer Francis Bengali is selling his £1.99m home... and there's not a hint of bling in sight
At first glance, Francis Benali’s family home has all the little necessities you might expect of a former Premier League footballer. There’s a swimming pool, cinema and stables. But it is mercifully bereft of the over-the-top WAG-tastic features that players and their wives are usually so fond of.
While Coleen and Wayne Rooney have a pink pool designed to look like a Roman bath in their Cheshire home, Francis and wife Karen have opted for a simple, white-tiled pool room with views over their three acres of land (adorned with a single, low-key, globe-shaped water feature, rather than the Rooneys’ fearsome collection of statuary).
The couple built Springwood six years ago as a perfect family home in which to raise their two children.
Goalposts have moved: Francis and Karen Benali with their children Luke, 18, and Kenzie, 16 on Springwood's impressive staircase
But although Francis, 42, played for Southampton for 17 years, he retired in 2005 and was not part of the generation of players who now command six-figure weekly salaries.
The couple therefore face the conundrum most sportsmen must tackle once their career ends: how they will earn a living thereafter.
The Benalis’ solution is to put their house in Chilworth, a village north of Southampton, on the market for £1.995million.
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‘Retiring so young is not easy,’ says Francis. ‘It is a major adjustment.
From training for a few hours every day and earning good money, you suddenly find yourself working much harder for a lot less money.’
When Springwood is sold, the family plan to rent a home while they build a new and more modest property nearby. This, they hope, will leave them with enough equity to help with family holidays and funding a university education for Luke, 18, and Kenzie, 16.
Francis also hopes to forge a second career as a property developer, despite the distress of his first attempt falling victim to the recession last year.
Selling-up: Springwood is a five bedroom home decorated with a classic, clean look and a few flourishes
Luken Homes, which he set up with his father-in-law in 2002, went into creditors voluntary liquidation, an experience so traumatic that he prefers not to discuss it.
The Benalis met as teenagers in Southampton and their first marital home was a four-bedroom house in Hedge End, a town to the east of the city, which they self-built in 1989.
They loved the experience of putting their own stamp on a property, so in 1997 they sold the house for £155,000 and invested £175,000 in a post-war three-bedroom property in Chilworth, spending a further £250,000 upgrading and extending it into a five-bedroom home.
They were delighted with their handiwork and planned to stay put, but then a house in the same lane went on the market. The property was nothing special but it came with three acres of grounds and views over Forestry Commission land.
FOOTIE PADS
Solihull , £1.35m
Four-bedroom house overlooks a golf course. Being sold by former Welsh international Mark Bowen.
Agent: Savills, 0121 713 4011
Cuffley, Herts , £3.75m
England star Jermain Defoe is selling his six-bedroom mansion with cinema and double garage.
Agent: Statons, 01707 661 144
Seduced by its setting, the couple paid £750,000 for it in 2005 and knocked it down to build Springwood.
They moved in during July 2006. Karen took charge of the interiors and has opted for a classic, clean look with a few flourishes.
And so the Gone With The Windstyle central staircase, made of hardwood and glass, adds drama to the entrance hall but its lines are simple and the huge light fitting suspended above it is a pared-down modern chandelier. The family tend to congregate in the kitchen / breakfast room, with walnut units and Silestone work surfaces, or in the glazed snug overlooking the pool.
The project cost £750,000, in part due to the Crestron and Lutron music and lighting systems and an industrial-scale walk-in fridge.
Karen says the couple have invested all their resources in property and, despite the line of wardrobes in her dressing room, she has not lived a WAG lifestyle.
‘We haven’t bothered with fast cars,’ she says. ‘Everything we have ever had, we have put into property.’ If the couple achieve their asking price, they will have made a respectable profit from an initial investment of £1.5million, bearing in mind that they bought the site two years before the market imploded.
Lee Turner, of Pearsons estate agents, says large homes in Chilworth sell for about the £2million mark because it is the ‘premier area’ in the city, popular with doctors and lawyers.
‘The market has been stagnant but it is getting better,’ says Turner.
‘People are interested in buying in Chilworth, and they are getting value for money.’
Morris Dibben (02380 228822, www.morrisdibben.co.uk)
