26 July 2023 , 15:17
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Arsenal academy product Henri Lansbury has decided to call time on his career at 32 - but will remain in football in a surprising new role.
The midfielder had been playing with Luton, making six appearances for the Hatters as they secured a shock promotion from the Championship. He has subsequently been released though and decided to hang up his boots to turn his attention to gardening and turfs.
Lansbury developed a new lockdown love and will soon begin work on the Monaco pitch at the Stade Louis II as they prepare for Champions League football. He's previously helped out at Fulham's Craven Cottage and with Belgian outfit Genk as his new business, Grass Gains, continues to take off.
He told talkSport: "It came about during the first lockdown when I was stuck at home and got into gardening. 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."
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Lansbury added: "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. 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."
The midfielder began his career at ArsenalLansbury came through the ranks at Arsenal, one of a number of youngsters to break through in the mid-2000s. A host of loan spells followed to the likes of Scunthorpe and West Ham, with whom he won promotion at Wembley back in 2012.
His first permanent switch was to Nottingham Forest, where he made over 150 appearances before Aston Villa came calling. He was a regular with the Midlands outfit in the Championship, winning another second tier promotion via the play-offs before he struggled for minutes.
Lansbury found more game time at Bristol City, but only spent one year at Ashton Gate before heading to Kenilworth Road. He was a consistent performer for Luton but, last term, an injury massively hampered his season and he rarely featured this calendar year, but still celebrated with another Wembley success.