'Arsenal boss tipped me to be a big player – now I'm a gardener and don't regret leaving'

View 4 Images

Former Arsenal academy star Henri Lansbury had no regrets about leaving the Gunners before going on to run his successful grass fertiliser business. Lansbury joined Arsenal as a nine year-old in 1999 and was part of the talented Hale End generation that included Jack Wilshere , Luke Ayling and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas .

The midfielder made his debut in 2007 aged 17 and his Premier League debut in 2010 after loan spells at Scunthorpe United and Watford . He was backed by then-manager Arsene Wenger to become a future star, with the Frenchman saying in 2010: "He will be a big player for me.

"He is at the moment having a very interesting experience [at Watford] that we judge to be very successful. He will come back at the end of the season and practice with the first team in the next pre-season. Then we will assess the situation with him together."

Yet, Lansbury struggled to break into the star-studded Arsenal midfield, before being sent out on loan again to Norwich City . Arsenal’s 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford in 2011, where he came on as a late substitute, proved to be his final game for the club, ending his 13-year association with the Gunners.

He joined West Ham on a season-long loan afterwards and helped get them promoted before signing for Nottingham Forest in a £1million deal in 2012, having amassed eight Arsenal appearances and registered a single goal to his name. Lansbury, who remained a key player for Forest until 2017, later opened up on how he reached the difficult decision to leave his boyhood club.

The former England U21s star said he left out of a desire to prove himself and had no regrets about doing so three years after his transfer. Lansbury told Sky Sports : " At the time, I spoke to Arsene and he said I was not guaranteed to play every week, which you can understand being at Arsenal as it is a top club and probably one of the best in the world . They have the best players and being a young player there, it is tough to come through.

"If I am not playing, I am not the type of person that wants to sit around and play reserve games. I want to be involved and playing first-team football every week. I think the main thing for a young player is to go out and play as many first-team games as you can.

"Having gone out on loan and played first-team football, I just needed to move permanently and regularly play first-team football. I couldn't have sat there and waited about. But you see some of the boys that have done that, Francis Coquelin for example. I was with him and we were in the same boat. He's waited about, got his chance and he's taken it very well."

View 4 Images

Lansbury went on to have a respectable career in the Premier League and the Championship, playing for Aston Villa , Bristol City and Luton Town. He retired aged 32 in 2023 having been part of the Luton side that clinched promotion to the Premier League, though his final season was severely hampered by injury.

That was not as heart-breaking as it might have been, however, thanks to Lansbury’s new hobby and side-hustle which he had already been pursuing in the background. During lockdown, Lansbury developed a new love for gardening and ended up finding a new organic alternative to toxic chemical fertilisers, so his children could still play on his lawn immediately after application.

His passion saw him launch Grass Gains, a now hugely successful company, which quickly expanded by applying their products to professional pitches for football clubs like Fulham , Monaco and Genk. Their products have since hit shelves in stores like Homebase, with the self-dubbed ‘Lawn Lad’ enjoying a full circle moment as he reportedly even tended to the pitches he used to rip up as a youngster at Arsenal’s Hale End academy.

4 View 4 Images

4 View 4 Images

Lansbury, whose former sides Arsenal and Nottingham Forest face off at the City Ground on Saturday afternoon, dreams of working on the Emirates Stadium pitch one day. But for now he is happy to give back to local clubs.

He said: "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.

Sky has slashed the price of its Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle ahead of the 2025/26 season, saving members £192 and offering more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more.