Debut draw

The usual stodgy fare fed to football fans has been kicked into touch at The New Lawn stadium where chef Em Franklin overseas the menu.

‘‘The Q-pie is brilliant – people love it,’’ she told The Guardian. ‘‘It’s a shortcrust pastry base, puff pastry lid and it’s Quorn with soya be´ chamel white sauce, with thyme and leeks.

‘‘Because we’re vegan doesn’t mean it’s all lettuce and lentils.’’

Dale Vince, who has owned Forest Green Rovers since 2010, founded Ecotricity, a green energy power generation and supply company worth an estimated $NZ176 million.

Nailsworth - population 5794 - is the smallest town in Britain with a Football League club, but its owner has big ambitions.

Vince banned red meat consumption at New Lawn stadium in 2011 and kicked fish and dairy products into touch in 2015. He has also installed electric car charging points outside the ticket office.

He told ESPN.COM: ‘‘The football and the green message support each other; it’s a symbiosis. If we do great on the football pitch, then what we say about organic, vegan and electric cars has more resonance.

‘‘If you cut us open like a stick of rock, you’ll see the environment runs all the way through us. It’s is in our DNA.’’

Vince is proposing to build a stadium built entirely from wood as part of a 100-acre Eco Park containing community facilities, such as gyms, allweather pitches and sports science clinics. He has estimated the cost at $NZ176 million.

Forest Green do not mind sending up their green sensibilities.

When the club won last May’s Football League playoff game at Wembley, BBC Radio Gloucestershire comment Bob Hunt barked into his microphone: ‘‘Cheltenham, Swindon, Newport, you’re going to eat hummus at The New Lawn next season ...’’