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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s a Monday evening and the 2021\/22 football season has just finished. I\u2019m sat at the back of a hall waiting for other members of our community choir to arrive for a practice. Last to enter, and to complete our half-dozen blokes bass section, is Alan. Chirpy as ever, he\u2019s dressed in a very striking top. (My mum would have called it \u2018snazzy\u2019, one of her favourite words.) Between voice exercises up and down the scales and us hitting and missing notes, he gives me the back-story to his shirt. By the time we conclude our repertoire for the night with \u2018You\u2019ve Got A Friend\u2019, I\u2019ve found a new Forest to support!<\/p>\n
Alan takes an active interest in environmental issues and occasionally wears a tee-shirt emblazoned with a cause to care about but this one is different. \u2018ecotricity\u2019 stretches across the chest of bright, lime green, cut through with black, diagonal waves as stripes. You can\u2019t ignore it! A neat, small circle, where you\u2019d expect a club badge to be, has in it a traditional lion-unicorn-football image and the name \u2018Forest Green Rovers\u2019.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1889, it\u2019s only in the last decade or so, since Dale Vince took over, that the club has come to claim some fame on the green-front and to climb up the leagues. Forest Green have just been promoted to Division One as Nottingham Forest have claimed a Premiership spot!<\/p>\n
Dale Vince also happens to be the owner of the renewable energy firm, Ecotricity, and the environmental credentials of his club are impressive. Their home ground, New Lawn, perched on a hill outside the small Cotswold town of Nailsworth, might only have a capacity of 5,000 but in other respects it\u2019s ground-breaking.\u00a0Powered by 100% green energy, including solar panels on the roof, Forest Green has now been recognised by the United Nations as the world\u2019s first carbon-neutral club. In 2018, FIFA called it the greenest football club in the world.<\/p>\n
Given all this, I can see why Alan feels a strong connection with the club and has come to support it, but is there any other reason he wears the shirt with pride? \u2018Yes,\u2019 he says. \u2018My mum comes from Gloucester and Forest Green\u2019s the nearest team to her family.\u2019 So – as so often – supporting a club is entwined with family and heritage. Finally, as if I needed to know more in order to understand how special the club is, he says: \u2018The pitch is organic and free from pesticides and weedkillers. It\u2019s mown by a solar-powered robotic lawnmower\u2019. We laugh in tune!<\/p>\n
A couple of months later, I look at my own lawn (can I still call it that?), biscuit-brown and on the cusp of dust.\u00a0 No surprise there, given the summer we\u2019re having. No surprise, either, that professional football pitches are a consistently brilliant green. We would expect no less these days (and the City Ground has always had one of the best pitches), along with pristine markings and billiard-table smooth playing surfaces. Long gone are the mud-bath or bobble-baked or sandpit surfaces. It\u2019s easier for players to show off a turn of speed, silky skills or swift interplay. We all applaud and appreciate that and it\u2019s what fans want.<\/p>\n
With the recent announcement that the local council has approved plans for the Peter Taylor main stand to be redeveloped, Forest will make about 5,000 more seats available to supporters, helping meet a demand for tickets in the future, assuming they stay in the Premiership. The club, of course, were reported to be delighted that \u2018the green light\u2019 had been given to their building proposals.<\/p>\n
I hope that\u2019s not the only green reference in any ground developments. On Sunday, the Reds will host their first top-flight game for 23 years against West Ham in unprecedented conditions. Record temperatures mean teams playing over the weekend in the Premiership will be given official drinks breaks during their match. That\u2019s an immediate response to a serious issue. It would be good to see the powers-that-be in football act more decisively on a number of other pressing issues, including the inevitability of climate-heating. The sport\u2019s close relationship with the gambling industry needs to be reviewed, racism continues to raise its ugly head, responsible club ownership should be reassessed. These are a few of the other heavyweight concerns that blight the beautiful game which captivates so many of us week in, week out.<\/p>\n
Forest Green Rovers have gone it alone on the environment-front. It shouldn\u2019t be left to individual clubs but they\u2019ve modelled what can be done. I\u2019ll be following them, along with my inherited Forest, this season, and hope they both survive. The Reds – aside from what they\u2019ve given fans on the pitch – have much to be commended for as a club, including connecting with the community. (Their contribution during Covid comes to mind.) It\u2019d now be great if they could pick up the baton of their namesakes and add more green to their own credentials.<\/p>\n
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