Real Estate Issues In North London

By: chris | February 21st, 2008

It’s not the best of time to be owning property if you play for Tottenham or Arsenal. Chances are you won’t have this problem, but Jonathan Woodgate and Manuel Almunia do. Well, Woody doesn’t yet, because the real estate market is far too rich for his blood and he isn’t ready to get bent over for a house. Maybe he can go shopping with Almunia, whose house is, in his own words, “haunted”.

Woody spent yesterday waxing lyrical about housing costs in London at a presser.

“We need to find a place to live. We’ve seen apartments, we’ve seen houses and all the prices and it’s a lot more expensive down here than it is up north. I think you could buy 10 penthouses up north for the price of something down here.”

“House prices are a joke, they are. It’s unbelievable. When you are looking about and you see some of the houses, you think “What?”

“You just want the right place for you and you want to get it at the right price. You don’t want to end up getting ripped off in any way, do you?

“It’s expensive for everyone, isn’t it? You don’t want to be blowing stupid money on a house.”

£60,000 a week will probably help, yeah?

Manuel Almunia, however, has bigger problems, as his house north of London is haunted by a monk. Yes, a monk. And he often has to skip out on Gunner lunchtime to go home and be with his wife, who won’t stay home alone.

He is so spooked boss Arsene Wenger has given him permission to go home for lunch to avoid leaving wife Ana alone at the house in Abbots Langley, Herts. Terrified Almunia said yesterday: “My house is small but there is a lot of history to it and it seems there are ghosts.

“One night, we were sleeping and my wife suddenly woke me up with a shout. She said there was this monk-like figure with a candle in his hand. She was in bed, next to me. I didn’t see him but I was s*** scared.

“We’ve spoken to neighbours, and they said this was normal. Perhaps it’s black magic, I don’t know. But some weird things were definitely going on.”

Solution: Why don’t Manuel and Jonathan buy a flat together in North London? Jonathan would save half the poundage and Manuel wouldn’t have to deal with ghosts anymore. Perfect. And then Spurs and Gunners fans would come together and there would be world peace and butterflies and cupcakes and we’d all live happily ever after. The end.