Branching out

I CAN DO IT . . . Boro manager Tony Mills has added another string to his bow after helping to set up a gardening business.

Driving, daisies and football... all in a day’s work for Tony
NON-LEAGUE FOOTBALL: IF Tony Mills thought 2010 was a busy year, the next 12 months won’t be any quieter.

The Oldham Boro manager was already juggling the responsibilities that come with running a Vodkat North-West Counties League Division One side and minibus firm AJs Travel.

Now he and a friend have set up Eco-Gardening and Landscaping, which does exactly what is says on the tin.

Mills remains as committed as ever to Boro, where he selects the team, identifies transfer targets, runs training sessions, drives players around, arranges fundraisers and even washes the kit.

Free time is at a premium when one spins so many plates, but his explanation is to-the-point. “I am football mad,” said Mills.

“My wife is a football widow to be honest. If I didn’t enjoy being a manager I wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t keep turning down work for the minibus firm on a matchday!

“There is a lot to do. Since starting the gardening business I leave home in the darkness and get home when it’s dark too, so it’s a bit like living in Scandinavia at the moment.

“But being a football manager is a great job to have. On the pitch things are starting to improve, and we are hard to beat at home.

“This is the best bunch of lads we have had at the club. There are no egos, no so-called superstars, just a hard-working group.

“It’s no surprise that morale is so high in the dressing room.”

AJs Travel has been going for 15 years, and exists mainly to get people to functions such as stag nights, as well as airport runs.

The gardening company came about accidentally.

“We did some landscaping work at the ground before one of the matches, and got some good feedback,” said Mills.

“Before we knew it, word had spread, and we started getting requests for jobs all over the place.

“It seemed the sensible option to take the next step and turn it into a proper business.”




First taste of coaching in honour of teacher
FOOTBALL has always been Tony Mills’ bread and butter, but he inadvertantly became involved in coaching at the age of 16 through tragic circumstances.

Mills and several other talented footballers were coming to the end of their academic careers at North Manchester High School, where they were regulars in the soccer team.

They were so good they were set to enter an under-21s league under the guidance of teacher Brian Rawlings.

But in the summer holidays, weeks before the team’s first match, Rawlings was killed in a plane crash.

Devastated Mills decided to run the team in his teacher’s honour.

“We just couldn’t believe what had happened,” he recalled.

“But we decided to carry on, because it is what he would have wanted. I took charge of the side as a tribute.

“Playing against lads who were several years older than ourselves, we did well in that league and held our own.”

Spells in charge of junior and pub sides followed before Mills took the reins at Failsworth Town in the Manchester League, at the turn of the century.

His success there caught the eye of the club we now know as Oldham Boro, formerly Oldham Town, in 2002. After three years as general manager, he decided to take over team affairs himself, and has relished the challenge ever since.