Cardwell sponsors Morton FC
Morton Football Club’s green-fingered assistant manager, Andy Millen reckons doing the garden is a great way of escaping the pressures of professional football.
A keen gardener for the past 40 years, he even worked full-time as a gardener, when he found himself out of the game for 18 months earlier in his career.
Andy visited the popular Cardwell Garden Centre,in Inverclyde, Scotland to check out the latest plants, seeds and gardening essentials.
This follows the announcement that Cardwell will sponsor Morton and have their name on the back of players’ shirts for a second year next season.
Andy also saw a rather unusual flowerpot display created by Cardwell’s gardening gurus – a leather football filled with compost and flowers growing out the top.
Andy says: “If any footballers, coaches or managers feel the pressure of the professional game then gardening is good therapy.
“It’s very relaxing and there’s nothing better than working away in your garden for a couple of hours with nobody to bother you. It’s a hobby I really enjoy as you can switch off from everything else.
“It gives you your own space and when you’re working in the garden there’s nobody giving you any grief or hassle. No one will be standing there criticising me.”
But he adds joking: “Unless my wife doesn’t like how I’ve trimmed the lawn!”
Nowadays, gardening may be a hobby for Andy, but in 2010 he found himself out of football when he left his position as St Mirren’s assistant manager. To make a living, Andy worked as a full-time gardener until he became assistant manager at Queen of the South a year-and-a-half later.
“I had to find a job and working as a gardener is what I did during that time to bring home a wage,” he reveals.
Andy, 58, explains how he caught the gardening bug: “I grew up in the Red Road high flats in Glasgow, but there wasn’t much gardening to be done living on the 24th floor of a multi-storey.
“However, when I was 18 my family moved to Cumbernauld where we had a garden in both the back and front of the house and that’s when I started. I’ve never stopped since then and that’s 40 years now I’ve enjoyed working in my garden.
“I like to make sure my lawn is in perfect condition by cutting it regularly and scarifying the grass. I’ve also lots of flowers in planters and borders in my garden.”
Andy adds: “I thought I’d seen it all when it comes to gardening, but it was really something else when the guys at Cardwell showed me the plants growing out of a football.”
Director at Cardwell Garden Centre, Kieran Gallagher said: “Andy’s absolutely right when he talks about the psychological benefits of gardening and there have been lots of studies to show this is the case.
“We like to play our part in the local community and that’s why we decided to again sponsor Morton FC, who are very much a community club.
“We thought Andy would like the idea of flowers growing out the top of a football as that aptly represents the partnership between Morton and ourselves.”
Morton’s general manager, Dale Pryde-MacDonald said: “We’re delighted Cardwell Garden Centre has committed to a further period of sponsorship of the back of our first team shirts.
“Working closely with local businesses is a key aim of ours within the club’s three-year strategy and being able to build on this strong partnership with Cardwell shows the commitment from both organisations to collaborate for the benefit of Inverclyde and our local communities.
“We’d like to thank the Gallagher family at Cardwell Garden Centre for working pro-actively with us and I can’t wait to see some of the exciting projects ahead in this partnership.”