FOREST GREEN: THE CARBON NEUTRAL CLUB
VEGAN BURGERS, SOLAR PANELS & SHIRTS MADE WITH BAMBOO.. FOREST GREEN ARE THE ECO CLUB MAKING A DIFFERENCE ON AND OFF THE PITCH
ON the boardroom lunch menu, it was BBQ pulled jackfruit and beetroot potato skins, with roasted sprouts.
Naturally, the famous vegan burger was on parade, too.
Outside, the organic pitch – free from all pesticides, fertiliser and chemicals – was being restored by the electric “mow-bot”, a GPS-directed lawnmower powered by electricity harnessed from daylight.
Around the New Lawn, a quaint setting in rural Gloucestershire’s fringes, the world’s first carbon-neutral football club is now run on solar panels and recycled rainwater.
The players’ shirts – designed by chairman and green energy industrialist Dale Vince – are made of 50 per cent bamboo, a world first. And coming soon, near Junction 13 of the M5, is £100million Eco Park, a new stadium to be built entirely of wood on a 100-acre site surrounded by 500 trees and a mile of hedgerows.
Welcome to Forest Green Rovers, the club that does exactly what is says on the tin: they are going to play in a forest, and they are the greenest, most eco-friendly club in the world.
Vince, 58, is the former new-age traveller who is the driving force behind the League Two high-flyers, whose eco-systems are setting a verdant agenda.
Although he has always liked football, Vince didn’t support a team until he resolved to pull off the greatest save of all time – better than Gordon Banks at the 1970 World Cup – on the front line of saving the planet.
“I never planned to get involved with football and I’d never been here – although I did go to Wembley 20 years ago, when Forest Green lost the FA Trophy final 1-0 against Kingstonian,” he said.
“I always liked that French dude – Eric Cantona (right). He was always very charismatic on the pitch, and he’s still a character now.
“It’s probably one of the oldest stories in the game but I came on board in 2010, when they needed a bit of money to get through the summer, and I didn’t want to see a 125-year-old club in my local area going to the wall for the sake of a little working capital.
“Next thing I knew it was autumn, the club admitted they actually needed a lot more money to survive, and they wanted me to become chairman.
“It was clear the choice was either to take responsibility for the club or to see it fold, which would have been a waste.
“When I took over, I didn’t have a plan or
a grand design. I just did everything on the hoof. Pretty much straight away I realised that I’d inadvertently become part of a meat trade. I noticed a chef serving beef lasagne to the players after training and thought, ‘That goes against the grain, I can’t be doing that’.
“I called in the chef and the manager, talked to the players about performance and how red meat was not helpful to athletes, and everyone bought into the ‘green’ ethos.
“We were accused of imposing a red meat ban – which I quite liked, because it stirred a bit of controversy – and a few of our fans were angry at first, but you expect that because it was a radical change. Someone said last year that we had ‘feminised’ football because we used to have pies and pints at games – I pointed out that we have pies and pints at Forest Green Rovers, but ours don’t have animal products in them.
“The difference between a
vegan pint and a non-vegan pint is fish bladder. I mean, who wants fish bladder in their beer? I certainly believe the vegan regime plays a part in our performance on the pitch. At the end of the season, when we won promotion into the League, we had no injuries among our squad – and I put that down to the diet. And when you look at players like Sergio Aguero in the Premier League – I read that he goes vegan during the season – the anecdotal evidence is that his sharpness and fitness is maintained by plant-based nutrition. If it’s good enough for Aguero, it will do for me.
“We don’t tell people what to do – not fans, not players, not staff – we just do things the way we believe they should be done.
“From the outset, we’ve told our fans, ‘If you don’t like the food we put on, just bring your own.’ We don’t confiscate ham sandwiches.”
So far, the only snide comments from a fellow chairman have come from Carlisle’s Andrew Jenkins – although there was a neat twist to the plot. Vince said: “Overwhelmingly, there is a genuine interest in what we are doing – whether it’s the pitch, the mow-bot, the solar panels or charging points for electric cars.
“The food is obviously a big talking point and I remember only one visiting club coming here and being negative about the food. The Carlisle chairman said he couldn’t bring himself to eat it because there was no meat in it and his family business has a big investment in the meat trade.
“But he was slated on social media and, when we went up there for the return fixture, they put on a vegan matchday menu for the entire stadium, an amazing gesture.
“When he came back here the following season, he was functionally polite. But if you understand the way some animals are farmed, and the incredible cruelty involved, I can’t imagine many people wanting to be a part of it. Medical evidence suggests meat is a root cause of major chronic illnesses, including heart disease, cancers or diabetes, and it’s a major driver of climate change.”
Reassuringly, Vince’s eco-warrior instincts don’t desert him when it comes to conferences with club chairmen or black-tie dinners.
He never wears a tie, which infringes a few boardroom dress codes, and he smiled: “Since we got into the League, there has been an annual get-together of chairmen – but it’s in Portugal, so I haven’t gone because of the carbon footprint it leaves.
“We raised it with the EFL, and I believe the event is going to be in England next year.”
I always liked the French dude – Eric Cantona. He was always very charismatic on the pitch, and he’s still a character