The story of a player who was set to be a star at Arsenal - and is now playing six-a-side under Micah Richards after surviving cancer.
Plenty of players who come through Arsenal’s academy fall a little short of stardom – but few will find themselves ending their career by playing six-a-side in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers after beating testicular cancer.
That’s how life has unfolded for Henri Lansbury, however. Once praised by Arsène Wenger amid expectations that he would become a mainstay at the Emirates, Lansbury became a mainstay of the Championship, a streaming star being managed by Micah Richards and a cancer survivor. Here’s what happened to one of Arsenal’s brightest prospects of the 2000s.
What happened to Arsenal’s Henri Lansbury?
Compared as a youngster to Steven Gerrard, Lansbury was an all-action midfielder working his way through both the Arsenal youth ranks and the England age group sides. He was an FA Youth Cup champion, an Under-21 international, and seemed set for a career at the highest level. It never quite came to fruition.
When he was 19 and on loan at Watford – one of four EFL teams he spent time with while on the books at the Emirates – then-Arsenal manager Wenger had high expectations for the teenage midfielder.
“He will be a big player for me," Wenger told the club’s official media channels. "He is at the moment having a very interesting experience [at Vicarage Road] that we judge to be very successful. He will come back at the end of the season and practise with the first-team in the next pre-season. Then we will assess the situation with him together."
In the end, Lansbury only ever made eight senior appearances for the Gunners – scoring just once, against fierce rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the EFL Cup. That would prove to be the apex of his Arsenal career, and the final evaluation made by the club was that he wasn’t quite going to make the grade.
Still, he was worth over £1m to second-tier Nottingham Forest, who snapped him up in 2012 and made him a first-team regular and later club captain who was described by manager Philippe Montanier as “a very good player” and “an example to the rest of the squad.”
In 2016, however, life threw an unexpected challenge at Lansbury’s feet. He felt a lump while in the shower after training – and, after trying to ignore it for months, finally went to the club’s medical team with his concerns. The test results came back positive for cancer. After what Lansbury told Sky Sports was a “mentally draining” period of worrying, he had surgery the same day that he was diagnosed.
"It happened quickly,” Lansbury recalled. “I can remember being on the laughing gas, trying to talk to them and being out. Then I woke up with Kieran Gibbs next to my bedside table, laughing that I had one nut."
Initially, Lansbury – who went into remission and recovered quickly – kept his experience quiet, only deciding to open up about what he went through in 2023.
“I didn't really want that sympathy vote," he said. "I like to keep things close to my chest and deal with them myself. Now that I'm open and honest about it all, I would love if I could help anyone. Even if it's just one person.
"As a man, you build up this wall in front of you, but you've just got to knock it down in this situation. Let somebody else help you to help yourself. It's a hard thing to do, but once you pluck up the courage and speak to someone, it makes it a lot easier to deal with.”
Happily, Lansbury’s career continued unimpeded. He moved to Aston Villa in 2017 without ever quite establishing himself at Villa Park, finding his role reduced once the club returned to the Premier League two years later. Spells with Bristol City and Luton Town followed. Then, in 2023, he announced his retirement at the age of 32. His life in football seemed to have drawn to a close – but there was still more to come, in a most unexpected form.
How the Baller League gave Lansbury a second chance in football
In April, Lansbury was the second player drafted to play in the Baller League – a streamer-led six-a-side tournament which saw former pros and academy prospects playing under the guidance of YouTubers, and which introduced unusual rules such as long-range strikes counting double or goalkeepers not being able to use their hands.
Hundreds of thousands of viewers watched each match with games presented by the wildly popular social media personality KSI. Lansbury turned out for VZN FC, coached by influencer Tobi Brown. It was probably a far cry from working under Wenger, but it doesn’t seem to have been too painful to keep Lansbury from coming back.
Now 35, Lansbury will also feature in the second UK edition of the tournament, which kicks off this October. He’s changed teams and joined Deportrio and will at least now be managed by a pair of former professionals, Micah Richards and Dean Sturridge. Team-mates will include Joleon Lescott, Manchester United youth star Josh Harrop and former Watford striker Marvin Sordell.
Many of the players involved in the tournament are young enough to hope that it can provide a showcase for their skills and a springboard back into the professional game – as well as some much-appreciated income – but for Lansbury this is more likely one last hurrah.
He may not have lived up to Wenger’s early expectations or his 16 England Under-21 caps, but he still had a career most players would be rightly envious of – and come through a challenge that many of them hope they will never endure.
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