As Forest Green Rovers became the smallest football club ever to be promoted into the football league, local radio presenter Bob Hunt offered this immortal commentary.
“Cheltenham, Swindon, Newport. You are going to eat hummus next season, because Forest Green Rovers are in the football league,” said Mr Hunt, of BBC Radio Gloucestershire, in May 2017.
His words instantly became part of local folklore and an inscription of them takes pride of place at the grounds of the club, near the picturesque town of Nailsworth, population 6,000.
The ground is home to a team staking a pretty convincing claim to be the world’s greenest sports club.
The Green Devils
The Green Devils, as the League Two side are known, are the only UK club to serve only vegan food and drink on the premises – while players are encouraged to cut animal products from their diets away from the grounds as well.
Even the – rainwater-irrigated – pitch is vegan.
“A lot of organic fertilisers contain animal matter – blood and bone, turkey and chicken litter, cow manure. Seaweed is the driving force behind my feeds,” head groundsman Adam Witchell told i on a trip to the ground last week.
He’s helped by his trusty assistant – a grass-mowing robot which runs which charges its batteries from the ground’s solar panels.
Trusty assistant
Known as the ‘mowbot’, it’s so committed to its job that it can sometimes be found cutting the grass in the small hours, guided by GPS technology.
“It messages me if it’s got a problem or if it stops, and beeps my phone. Now try explaining to your partner at 2 in the morning that your phone’s going off because of a robot,” Witchell said.
In July, FGR became the first professional sports club in the world to be certified as ‘carbon neutral’.
It generates much of its energy from solar panels on the stadium roof and takes the rest from Stroud-based Ecotricity, the renewable electricity producer founded by the club’s owner, Dale Vince.
Something of an eco-warrior, he took the team over in 2010 as it ran into financial difficulties and has transformed it into a green champion – using the broad appeal of football to bring environmental issues into the mainstream.
Vegan diet helping
And the team is having a huge environmental influence that goes way beyond its ground.
“I hadn’t thought of becoming a vegan at all but one game about two years ago I was stood in the queue waiting for some food and was reading some signs about the impact of dairy and meat and I decided to give it a try,” said Chris Latham, an FGR fan from the nearby town of Dursley.
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“And I’ve never looked back. I’m completely vegan and what has really surprised me are the health benefits. My asthma has almost completely gone. Before I was taking my inhaler most days, now I hardly ever take it,” he said.
“And I had soft tissue muscle injury that would reoccur almost every time I ran – and that’s completely gone now,” Latham added.
Running times improved
Even more dramatic, he is now running the same routes as before, with the same amount of training – but running them between a minute and a minute 15 seconds faster a mile. The only explanation is the diet, he says.
FGR striker Reuben Reid has also seen big changes since he went plant-only in April.
“Normally, after a Saturday game, I wouldn’t want to train again till Tuesday or Wednesday. Now I’m ready to go and train again on Monday. My sleep’s better – and all round, I just feel like a better human being,” he said.
He cautioned that the first few weeks after the switch were both emotionally and physically gruelling as the body released the toxins that had built up over the years.
But coming out the other side of the crash he has “a new lease of life, mentally and physically” – and has even managed shed around five kilogrammes of body fat that had previously eluded him.
Sense of identity
The green cause has given the club – and its fans – a stronger sense of identity.
“From the people I’ve spoken to it has made them change what they do and think about it, from cutting out plastic to changing their diet,” Langham says.
Not only are players and fans becoming vegan and more environmentally aware generally – but the big beasts are also starting to take note.
Executives from Wembley came by recently to find out how they can be greener – a visit that has already set in motion a collaboration with FGR head chef Jade Crawford to develop a vegan pie for the world’s most famous stadium.
And Sky, the BBC and the Premier League came down over the summer for some advice on how to use less energy during their outside broadcasts, which rely heavily on hugely polluting diesel motors.
Quorn range
Quorn, a sponsor of the club, recently trialled its first vegan range at the club, five miles south of Stroud – and Kettle Chips have been in touch, although it’s not yet clear what they have in mind.
And, in the coming months, the club will launch a new range of vegan range of balls and burgers under the Little Green Devils brand developed in house, at 8,000 school canteens around the country.
Not everybody is a fan, however. Take Andrew Jenkins, the 81-year old Carlisle United chairman and owner of the meat-heavy Pioneer Foodservice catering group.
Shortly after the two sides clashed last year, he wrote about his “strange” visit to Forest Green in the match programme.
Where’s my meat pie?
“I couldn’t pull myself together to sample the food on offer,” he admitted before pondering “What would happen if, when vegetarians came to our club, all we could offer was an all-meat menu,” – apparently conflating vegetarianism with veganism.
Still, even in these quarters, Forest Green could be said to be making progress. When Carlisle hosted them the next time they played a vegan option the club offered a vegan option for first time – both in the boardroom and in the club’s Foxy’s restaurant. It is unclear whether Mr Jenkins partook, however.
A conversation with Dale Vince
In the world of football, the environment is generally of little concern to the fans or the club, according to Forest Green Rovers’ owner Dale Vince.
And this is what gives the team much of its power to influence – bestowing an exoticism he is exploiting to the hilt.
“It’s a bit like going into the lion’s den. Football fans are not generally held to be on the cutting edge of eco-stuff and we’re telling them they should give up meat and that kind of stuff,” he said.
“My mission is to change the world, using sport as a channel to communicate to ideas around sustainability – and it’s so radically unexpected we get a lot of attention,” he added.
“My mission is to change the world, using sport as a channel to communicate to ideas around sustainability,”
Dale Vince
At the moment, the big football clubs are falling well short on the environment.
“I don’t think anybody is doing enough. I don’t think it really goes beyond ‘ticking a green box’ at the moment. But that is starting to change. I think the world of sport will pick up and run with it,” Vince said.
“I believe it’s only a matter of time before the big boys like Real Madrid, Man United and the San Francisco 49ers follow our example,” he added.
Early signs that he is right include Arsenal last year becoming the first Premier League stadium to source all of its electricity from renewable sources.
Meanwhile, Man City collects rainwater and uses low energy LED lamps to cut electricity use.
Read more from Tom Bawden
The post Why Forest Green Rovers could be the greenest sports club in the world appeared first on inews.co.uk.
from Football – inews.co.uk http://bit.ly/2SDV2Je
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