Ben White has claimed he would have made it to the top of the tree as a gardener if he had not cut it as a footballer.
The £50million England defender netted his first Arsenal goal in the famous fightback against Bournemouth to keep the Gunners five points clear. But White has admitted he never plotted to play the beautiful game - and insisted he would still have been a winner in another field.
“I’d probably be working with my dad if I wasn’t a footballer,” he said. “He used to be a gardener. I think that’s why there was never any pressure on me growing up, because I would have been very happy with that.
“I went into football, but it would have been no problem for me to do what my dad did. I’m obsessed with being the best I can be, and being successful, and that would have been in anything I did. I always want to do the most I can to be a success. So if I had gone into gardening, it would have been the same.”
Poole-born White, now 25, still regards playing professional football as a job which he does not take home. “My profession just happens to also be a lot of people’s hobby,” he told the Arsenal matchday programme. “They look forward to every Saturday to watch the game and that’s great.
“But for me it’s about being on the pitches every day, trying to constantly be the best you can be. That’s the bit I really love.”
“I never used to watch football much anyway. If it was on when I was a kid, after five minutes I’d get bored of it and go outside to play football. I didn’t really watch it, I’d much rather do it. Even now, I don’t watch football really.
“I watch my own clips and my own footage to help me improve but I wouldn’t watch a game for fun. Nobody in my family had ever played football, they have never been into it.
“My parents (Barry and Carole) aren’t football fans at all, so they didn’t push me into it. But they saw how much I loved it, and they did everything they could to help me.
“My dad has no idea about football to be honest. It’s quite funny, but it’s nice, too. I’ve got the coaches here to tell me what I need to know anyway, so it’s nice not to have any added pressure or anything outside of that.
"That’s how my life is arranged. When I come into the training ground, it’s all about football – 100 percent focus. Then when I leave, I switch off from it. I know some players are just about football 24/7 but for me, I wouldn’t be able to do that. I wouldn’t be able to give everything if I did that.
“I think it’s a good balance for me to switch off and leave it at the training ground.”
