Ross John Gardiner (born 30 December 1986) is a Scottish

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays in central defence/left back and is currently not signed.

Career

Gardiner was born in

Bellshill Bellshill (pronounced "Bells hill") is a town in North Lanarkshire in Scotland, southeast of Glasgow city centre and west of Edinburgh. Other nearby localities are Motherwell to the south, Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Hamilton to the south ...

, North Lanarkshire, but grew up in the

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

area (his father John was also a footballer who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

, and then managed teams in the Highland League). He trained with

prior to joining Dundee United's youth system, initially as an under-14 player. After turning professional in 2003, Gardiner became a regular in United's youth team and subsequently the reserve side. Having previously been listed as a substitute for the first team, he was given his debut in an

SPL SPL may refer to: Association football * Saudi Professional League * Scottish Premier League * SportPesa Premier League, Kenya * Singapore Premier League * RoboCup Standard Platform League, matches between autonomous robots Computing Program ...

match away to

Inverness Caledonian Thistle Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle, is a professional football club based in Inverness, Scotland. The team currently competes in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional F ...

in April 2006.Ross Gardiner Player Profile
Arab Archive After failing to make an impact at United, Gardiner was released from the club in May 2007 and joined Montrose in time for the 2007–08 season, leaving the club two years later. Gardiner then moved to Australia to play for

Bentleigh Greens Bentleigh Greens Soccer Club is an Australian semi professional soccer club based in Cheltenham, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. The club was formed in 1986, by the Greek Cypriot community and currently competes in the National Premier Leagues ...

, however he returned home due to injury at the end of the season.

References

External links

* 1986 births Living people Footballers from Aberdeen Scottish men's footballers Men's association football defenders Dundee United F.C. players Arbroath F.C. players Montrose F.C. players Scottish Premier League players Scottish Football League players Scottish expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's soccer players in Australia Scotland men's youth international footballers {{Scotland-footy-defender-1980s-stub