Away win to burglars, footballer admits

A premiership player driven out of his Footballers' Wives-style village in Cheshire by crime is moving - to London.

Manchester City defender Ben Thatcher's family no longer feel safe among the mock Tudor homes of Hale, home to many soccer and soap stars, after they were burgled twice in three months.

Thatcher, renowned as one of the toughest men in the Premiership, has now completed a £500,000 transfer to Fulham and has moved to the capital for peace of mind. However, according to statistics Hale is one of the safest places in Britain, with burglaries down 18.6 per cent in three years. The conviction in October of Philip Ankers is said to have cut burglary rates there by 59 per cent.

Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan lives in Hale, along with Manchester United captain Roy Keane, Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness and several stars of Coronation Street, which is filmed nearby.

Explaining why he was selling the Wales international, Keegan said: "He has been robbed twice. It was a very scary thing. His wife would not come back. We love him to bits at this football club but some things are more important.

"Some people might say that I am a softy but I don't want Ben here while his family and kids are down South."

Former Manchester United midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron also lived in Hale but moved to London after being bought by Chelsea.

Last year he was terrorised in his ?2.5 million home in Barnes by a machete-wielding burglar who threatened to kill his young children.