The moment that turned Glenn away from football and into training and education

When aspiring young footballer Glenn Robinson turned up for training at Walsall FC one day, he was, as always, eager to learn and improve.

Having signed associated schoolboy forms with the Football League club, Glenn had taken the first small step towards becoming a professional footballer; training with the club and playing for the reserves.

There was a long, long way to go but he had impressed the coaches enough to be accepted into the system - and the 16-year-old, tough-tackling right-back was hungry to learn.

So there was Glenn, one day in the school holidays, kitted up, boots on and ready to learn how to hone his skills as a footballer.

"I was given a paintbrush and a pot of paint," he recalls, "and told to go and paint some walls at the club’s ground.

"I said, politely, that wasn't what I was there for. I was there to learn football. And I was told 'if you don't like it, you can go away' (but not put quite so politely!).

"So I did."

And Glenn headed off to spend his career tackling not opposing wingers but the broader and rather more significant issue of training and equipping young people for future life.

In a way, that barked-out order to paint the walls (this was back in the 1970s, it should be pointed out - the youth system at Walsall Football Club and in the football industry as a whole is now much more enlightened) did Glenn a favour.

It showed him, first-hand, exactly how not to encourage young talent. And that was useful experience to call upon during the subsequent decades spent in education and training which left him ideally qualified for his current job - head of Warwickshire County Council's Skills for Employment programme.

"I wasn't being cheeky," said Glenn. "But I was there to learn how to be a footballer not a painter. I think you could say that wasn't a great example of how to encourage potential.

"That was pretty much the end of my ambitions to play professional football, but I've no regrets at all. I went into education and training instead and have found it deeply rewarding."

After five years teaching at secondary schools in Bishops Stortford and Stourbridge,

Glenn left mainstream education to spend five years working on curriculum development at two exam boards. He then joined the Learning and Skills Council in Surrey before a transfer to Coventry brought him back to the West Midlands where he was born and educated.

All that experience from years working in training, education and business made him perfectly-equipped to head up Warwickshire County Council's Skills for Employment programme. And, although he has enjoyed an interesting and varied career, his current role has brought to it yet another dimension.

"I really enjoy the work," said Glenn, who is one of a very short list of men to have pursued a successful career for the Learning and Skills Council and also played right-back for Saffron Walden. "Skills for Employment beings together all the strands I have been working with all those years.

"There is a lot of positivity towards the scheme from all parties and it is fantastic when you see tangible progress being made, like another business registering on the Connect portal and getting connected with a school.

"It is a busy job, with lots of meeting as we take the message out to all parts of the county, but one I really enjoy."

And more rewarding, in some ways, than putting opposing wingers into Row Z...