Robert Pires Prefers 250-Mile Commute To Living In Birmingham
By Chris Wright
New Aston Villa signing Robert Pires has revealed that he is being driven the 250 miles to and from training every day, rather than move from his luxury London apartment (which is situated on the old Highbury site).
Pires is quoted in today’s Sun as saying:
“There are players who do the journey by helicopter – I’m lucky enough to do it by car with a chauffeur but it doesn’t bother anyone here.
“This proves there is a really open mentality here and it doesn’t inconvenience me, either. Every morning I leave at 8am and by 9.30, or 9.45, I’m at the training ground and have time to get ready, to train and I have the best conditions possible.”
Villa face Pires’ former employers Arsenal next Saturday, but the 37-year-old believes that, although it will be ‘strange’ to line up against his old side, there will be no time for reminiscence:
“It will be strange as I recently trained for two months with them and played for several years there, but I’m wearing new colours and I’m ready.”
Which, all in all, begs the question: Which Villa players turn up for training in a bloody helicopter?
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Highbury to Villa Park is nowhere near 250 miles. A quick check on Google Maps shows it’s actually 114 miles.
I appreciate he probably doesn’t train at Villa Park, but I very much doubt it’s an additional 136 miles from Highbury.
So why the exaggeration? Was it to try and justify this complete non-story?
Ha, lol at Ashley Young!
Dave, you cannot have read it right. The article says 250 miles to and from. I see houw you could have made the mistake but clearly in this case the author means round trip by saying to and from, and 228 miles was rounded up to 250.
230 would have been a better number to report, methinks…
It’s a 250(ish) mile round-trip Dave, and the article was more-or-less just a thinly veiled excuse to post that Ashley Young pic!
@Dave
114×2?
Just to clarify, by my calculations the distance between Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground and the old Highbury site is roughly 118 miles (126 if you take the M40).
Didn’t Owen use to travel to Newcastle by helicopter from his home in Wales and even pick up Nicky Butt on the way?
Pretty sure Les Ferdinand did as well from London to Bolton.
@Dave
“[...] driven the 250 miles to and from training every day.”
At least your ability to use Google maps is ever-so-slightly better than your reading age and your arithmetic skill.
Totally worth the shit article for the pic!!
haha! that pic is priceless!
haha! that pic is priceless!
I didn’t think it was a “non-story” Chris, much better than most of the rubbish that comes up on Newsnow.
LEMME TELL YOU MAN THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME HES PULLED SOME SHIT LIKE THIS, the covetous cunt didn’t take a move to the Philadelphia Union because he said the city wasn’t high profile of beautiful enough for him.
@Martin: When you’re faced with a (monumentally) slow news day, ya gotta do the best you can with your meagre resources. It’s all been a bit dismal today.
Lol. He would rather do that then live in Birmingham. Is it that bad?
Apologies. I read it as 250 miles each way.
I still stand by the fact it’s a non-story.
@Sam: Why the anger over someone making a genuine mistake? Something I’m sure you’ve never done.
surley doin a 115 mile journey in rush hour traffic in about an hour an a half. that must be some driver he’s got himself there
[...] Robert Pires continues to win admirers. This piece reflects on his preference to being chauffeur-driven 250 miles each way from his luxury L… [...]
That is very understandable. I mean who would want to live in the shithole known as Birmingham?