'I played for Arsenal and Nottingham Forest but quit football at 32 to sell fertiliser'

Arsenal are gearing up to take on Nottingham Forest in the Premier League this weekend, and a former player of both clubs has now embarked on a completely different career path away from football.

Henri Lansbury, who started his career at the Arsenal academy and made eight appearances for the Gunners, has swapped his football boots for gardening gloves.

After loan spells with Scunthorpe, Watford, Norwich and West Ham, Lansbury signed for Forest in 2012 and spent four-and-a-half years at the City Ground, making 150 appearances. He later had stints at Aston Villa, Bristol City and Luton Town before retiring from professional football last year at the age of 32.

The former midfielder has since launched a product called Grass Gains One Shot Wonder Liquid Fertiliser, which helps make grass greener. Now known as ‘The Lawn Lad’, Lansbury explained why he decided to venture into the gardening business after hanging up his boots.

“It came about during the first [Covid] lockdown when I was stuck at home and got into gardening,” Lansbury told talkSPORT in July last year.

“I started to spray my weeds with toxic stuff and put toxic fertiliser down and my missus wasn’t too happy about the kids running on the grass straight after.

“I was trying to usher them off and she said, ‘Why can’t they just make an organic fertiliser?’ I put my head together with my mate and me and the boys have cracked on and taken it to another level.”

His future business plans could see him returning to football in some capacity. “We’re going in the right direction, a few local clubs have asked for it and we’ve put it down on their pitches as well,” he added.

“I want to give back to the local clubs really, I want them to have a nice pitch to play on, there’s nothing better than a kid running on a pitch with stripes on it and that’s what it does, it helps stripe it off.”