Stars including Steven Gerrard, Jerzy Dudek, Peter Crouch, Tony Hibbert and Phil Jagielka were all targeted during a three year period in the 2000s
Police watch the gates of Steven Gerrard’s house in Formby after the robbery(Image: Trinity Mirror)
Former Liverpool starlet Raheem Sterling was on the receiving end of a terrifying burglary last weekend, when masked men smashed into the house while he was at home with his young family. Acting on instinct, Sterling made sure his children were safe before confronting the gang, bravely driving them away before they could make off with anything.
While still an occurrence, burglaries and armed robberies at the homes of celebrities are now more of a rarity due to increased CCTV and security systems put in place for that very reason. But in the mid-to-late 2000s a series of unconnected but terrifying incidents plagued Merseyside and the wider north west.
The luxury homes of Premier League footballers were targeted, often while the players were on the pitch, leading to a phenomenon dubbed “the away-day robberies”.
Between July 2006 and September 2009, at least 21 homes belonging to footballers at clubs including Liverpool, Everton and Manchester United were targeted by gangs of masked yobs, who sometimes confronted and threatened loved ones in their pursuit of riches. The threat was so frequent that online bookie Paddy Power even offered odds on what star would be targeted next, before withdrawing the bad joke.
As part of a weekly series looking back at the north west’s criminal history, the ECHO has revisited the spate of burglaries and robberies that terrorised the region’s footballers for a number of years.
Away-day robberies began in earnest in the summer of 2006 when a young thug called James Birch, 20, smashed through a patio door in the wealthy village of Caldy on the south-west Wirral coastline. He claimed not to have targeted the house deliberately, but it turned out the house belonged to LFC goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek.
Birch made off from the scene with memorabilia including Dudek’s Champions League winner’s medal and World Cup shirt, as well as jewellery and a Porsche car. Dudek issued a plea through the ECHO for his “absolutely irreplaceable” items from the “highpoint” of his career to be returned.
Realising the rich pickings, Birch and his gang also stole from the homes of Liverpool’s Peter Crouch, Daniel Agger and on-loan Florent Sinama-Pongolle, and Everton’s Tony Hibbert and Andy Van der Meyde.
From Crouch’s Cheshire home he stole an Aston Martin car, football memorabilia and champagne worth a total of £200,000 while the striker faced Galatasaray at Anfield. On the same day he raided Agger’s Wirral home and took two vehicles and jewellery, while Sinama-Pongolle lost jewellery and memorabilia from his Cheshire home in the same spree.
Blues defender Hibbert lost jewellery and electrical goods worth £70,000 from his Merseyside home. Birch also stole a Ferrari and Mini car from Van der Meyde’s home in Bromborough during a testimonial match. He also pinched valuables and a pedigree Dogue de Bordeaux puppy, named Mac, who was later returned after an appeal.
Birch was jailed in December 2006 for two-and-a-half years, but no-one else was imprisoned.
A police officer stands outside the house of Liverpool football player Steven Gerrard whose home was targeted(Image: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
But more menacing things were to come and, in December 2007, Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard’s Formby home was raided while he was away playing a Champions League tie in Marseille. Four masked robbers wearing dark clothing and balaclavas smashed their way into the house and confronted Gerrard’s partner Alex Curran and their nanny, demanding cash and valuables from the safe or they would “take her kids”.
The thieves stole a Rolex and two sets of car keys from the house, but missed a Cartier watch that Ms Curran, now Ms Gerrard, had mentioned in the press. Nearly three years later, one of the “extremely violent” burglars, Martin Wilson, was jailed for seven years and four months for his role in the robbery.
Detectives caught Wilson because a mobile phone he used during an earlier robbery was also used close to the Gerrard home on the night of the robbery. He was already serving a different sentence for robbery when he was sentenced. Wilson was convicted of murder in December 2024 and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Other Liverpool players including Dirk Kuyt, Pepe Reina and Lucas Leiva had their homes, all in Woolton, raided in the following months. But the raid at Gerrard’s house marked a turning point with the away-day robberies becoming increasingly violent.
Martin Wilson – (left) following his conviction for burglary and (right) following his murder conviction(Image: Merseyside Police)
In July 2008, former Reds and then Bolton striker Emile Heskey’s girlfriend was threatened with a knife at their home in Hale by two men who stole jewellery and keys to the former Wigan striker’s BMW X5.
Blackburn’s former South American forward Roque Santa Cruz’s wife was held at knifepoint by raiders in December of the same year while ex-United midfielder Darren Fletcher’s fiancée was threatened with a knife to hand over her engagement ring the following February. Both were in the leafy Altrincham suburb of Bowden.
The slew of incidents culminated when the then Everton and England defender Phil Jagielka was robbed at knifepoint while watching his team play on TV. Jagielka was forced to hand over jewellery and the keys to his Range Rover, when three men burst into his £2m Knutsford home on September 2009.
Speaking to the BBC following the incident, Jagielka said: “Things do get out of control. Either the robbers are going to get overturned, and I would hate to think what is going to happen to him, or vice versa, if someone comes in with a knife and slips and ends up stabbing you.” He added: “I am not sure what the police can do or what you can do as a footballer.”
In the wake of the robberies, security companies branched out to provide domestic protection systems in place for high-profile clients including footballers. Security included reinforced doors and walls, panic rooms, armour plating on their cars, uniformed security guards at the entrances to their complexes and dogs.
In a 2009 Guardian article, Warrington-born former Tranmere player John Bramhall, then the assistant chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said: “Football clubs are becoming a lot more active now with the security provision they put in place. It is a major concern to look after their players, so that they can focus on playing football.”
The away-days phenomena might not be as prominent as it once was. But the attempted robbery of Sterling’s family home – the third time property linked to him has been raided – shows that footballers’ houses still make an attractive target for violent robbers.
Former LFC forward Roberto Firmino’s home in Mossley Hill was burgled in December 2016, while England’s former top goal-scorer Wayne Rooney’s house was targeted by an ex-serviceman as he played a testimonial game just months before.
Everton loanee Jack Grealish’s Cheshire home was targeted in 2023, while recent Liverpool transfer Alexander Isak was targeted by burglaries during a series of high-value break-ins when he was playing in Newcastle.
A security consultant told The Mail earlier this month that an unidentified club with several players in the Cheshire area had boosted security by hiring former MMA fighters to safeguard them and their families.
He added: “So the gangs from Manchester and Liverpool view Prestbury and Knutsford as a kind of Disney Land with endless opportunities. They are not scared of the security guards in the fake police cars who are a source of amusement for them. They just want to get in, pull a score and get off.”