Fortune, fame and fans treat Benni like a god

From a three-in-a-bedroom Hanover Park council flat to a five-bedroom mansion in the best part of Manchester, Benni McCarthy's star has rocketed beyond his wildest dreams.

The Cape Town soccer star arrived in the city last week for a brief holiday following a dream first season in the English Premiership with Blackburn Rovers.

In the 10 months since his ?2.5 million transfer from Portuguese club Porto, McCarthy has banged in the goals for Rovers, garnering instant fame and wealth.

"The fans love him, they treat Benni like a god," said McCarthy's brother Jerome, who spent the past month in England with his famous footballing sibling.

"People couldn't believe it when I told them how Benni, myself and our sister shared a three-by-three (metre) bedroom in Hanover Park as kids ... me and Benni had to share a bed."

These days, thanks to his stunning scoring record for Rovers, McCarthy seldom has to share anything. He has someone who comes in to do the cooking, plus a housekeeper. He'll soon have a different car for each day of the working week, he has a movie collection Ster-Kinekor would be proud of and friends more famous than movie stars.

"Benni and Cristiano Ronaldo, who lives about five minutes' walk down the road, are very close and he's also big buddies with Rio (Ferdinand)," says Jerome McCarthy, whose mind still boggles at the extravagant lifestyle of footballers in England.

"They all live in these huge houses and drive big cars ... petrol's so expensive, but they don't feel it."

Soon McCarthy plans to add to his already impressive car collection. At the moment he has a Mini "to run around in when the traffic is heavy", a Range Rover "for when it rains" and a Bentley Continental "when he feels like a change" for the 30-minute drive from his house in the posh Manchester suburb of Hale to the Rovers training ground in Blackburn.

As soon as he goes back to England, the boy from the Flats plans to add an Aston Martin to his fleet.

When he's not shuffling cars in his driveway, McCarthy spends "hours on his Playstation 3", off-nights "chilling out" with friends at the best restaurants, or quiet nights home "at the movies".

McCarthy has a cinema at home with a huge screen and projector ... with about 500 movies, mostly law and court dramas.

And when he gets bored there's a gym down the passage or a game of pool in the poolroom when Ronaldo or countryman and Rovers teammate Aaron Mokoena pop in.

And just as adept as he's been at weaving his way past defenders, McCarthy is finding his feet at the Sky television studios in London.

A couple of times a month he flies down to the English capital to act as a comments man during Spanish and Portuguese league matches.

McCarthy is fluent in both languages after playing for about three years each in Spain and Portugal, and has spoken about going into television when he's finished playing.

But that is likely to be some time down the line. There is the second year of a four-year contract at Rovers to start training for in about a month's time ? that's if a big move to a club like Chelsea doesn't send McCarthy on another path to yet more glory.

But, according to Rovers manager Mark Hughes, that transfer will not take place. "We're not a selling club," said Hughes, who a day later added: "If (Dimitar) Berbatov (the Spurs striker) is worth ?30m, what is my Benni worth?"