Forest Green Rovers: The Club Trying To SAVE The Planet! | #Journeymen

[Music] welcome back to journeyman the show where we Scout a footballing universe for the most interesting stories from the most fascinating club's now you may notice today that James Wayne isn't here he's in bed with the flu but also that we were in the beautiful countryside that's because we're going to Forest Green Rovers the world's greenest football club let's go [Music] so obviously lovely being in the countryside you've got the fresh air you got the lovely surroundings but lots of lots of couch remember to look out for that stuff when you're walking through the country because you know kids you know could end up where you don't want it so who are Forest Green Rovers founded all the way back in 1889 the Gloucestershire Club have been a very humble entity for much of their history located in the small town of nails Worth and known to many as the little club on the hill they never got anywhere near the Football League until the last twenty years in fact their biggest honour was an FA vars triumph in 1982 we go back probably 25 26 years they kind of roast the pyramid of the non league very quickly the last three leagues and then everybody said virtually every year in the conference hall forest-green will go down and we thought we'd reached our limits yeah look village six thousand people - to get that far but we survived for 1819 years and almost relegated a couple of times but the final few years was a struggle having flirted with relegation twice in the space of a few years fgr were on the verge of extinction but in 2010 renewable energy entrepreneur delve in save Forest Green Rovers and started a sustainable revolution at the club so the club was in trouble in the summer of 2010 and we lent some money that for cash flow to get through the summer initially he thought it was probably a hundred thousand the soul to help was out in the short term come the end of the summer they said actually it's worse than that and you need to take over and if not the club was gonna fold and I said ah you know I don't want to do that and you know too busy to do that but we thought about it at clubs 125 years old big private community you know and it's our backyard so we said all right we'll take responsibility it really was a struggling club unless he'd moved in would have done a barrier Bolton and disappeared probably so what happened next within two years of taking over del Vince the club colors from black and white to black and green and over the last decade this has been coupled with a transformation off the field Forest Green Rovers now run entirely on renewable energy have a totally organic pitch house their own charging points for electric cars don't sell meat or dairy at their stadium and are recognized by the UN as the world's first carbon neutral football club we've created this Green Football Club this thing that's really quite improbable in many people's minds were working with the United Nations on a global program to replicate the work we've done here in sports of all kinds and and that's about harnessing the power of sports fans all over the world in the fight against climate change I think what we're doing is you know fantastic I really I really believe in it I like weight stands on his environmental policies with the solar panels with the pitch I think it's quite good really and I think it sets a good president for the club so you might want to do something similar you know he's a strong character you know and you know he's also been on the national stage in relation to climate change as well and policies that are needed to address it so you know I think that for me that's that's a very positive thing and in 2017 fgr became officially recognized as the world's first vegan football club now before any of you angry meat eaters start bashing away on your keyboards just hear them out pretty good when we went vegetarian and then vegan some of the supporters didn't like it because traditionally football supporters like their burgers and their sausage rolls and whatever but when the quality was sampled most people have come on side and a lot of people really do enjoy the vegan food there I'm vegan when I travel with the club normally as the players are but no I I do meet occasionally mainly white meat but I love vegan food especially that cooked by the chef Jada forest green it's excellent and we find that with with a lot of away supporters and certainly visiting directors the very praiseworthy about the food that's served up I was a vegetarian ever since on-site support for ice cream really so vegan a couple years ago which wasn't really much to do with the club but it did help but why should we swap our hotdogs and burgers for something more green when we go to the football 50% of the UK's land is taken up with grassland for grazing and we import 40% of our food so just on the basis of you know our ability as a country to feed ourselves you know it's an incredibly inefficient turning plants into animals to either and it doesn't matter you hear all this stuff about oh we can do it in nice you have nice farms where all the animals are happy and and so on but it you can't beat the maths you know the maths are it's much more efficient to grow your protein there's plants and need those than it is to go via an animal you just can't beat that so I think if you have meat 5 days a week how about think about having it two days a week or one day a week you know let's say try the food because you know lots of our fans have tried it and they've gone vegetarian and vegan themselves at home our players have done the same you know there's a lot of preconceptions about veganism and plant-based living I would say to anybody try it because you don't really know until you do this makes Forest Green Rovers unique and has brought them attention from all over the world our audience has grown about fourfold in the last nine years you know the the mass audience you see our shirts on the street you see kids wearing them and adults wearing them so it goes way beyond the community of stroud I would say and our community actually is the community of environmentalists and people who care about what's going on and want to change that you know we've got thanked I was in 20 different countries of the world people that are community they've seen what we're doing in the you know practice we had a contingent from Germany came up to the salt with match a few weeks ago and the French contingent came last week to play I mean it's it's quite amazing really but this new direction hasn't gone down well with everybody we've attracted a lot of funds just through the vegan thing and the environment all like ethos of the club which is good in a sense but on the other sense it doesn't quite create the die-hard fan base so Football Club needs a lot of local people that live around there some of them don't quite like Dale's political views and he makes them quite known it kind of puts people off coming up at the club because they don't come up to watch the football they've always got someone talking about Dale's done this day was tonight and it can't affect it furthermore del Vince is a big supporter of extinction rebellion who have divided public opinion with their own efforts to tackle climate change on the streets with some claiming them to be too radical first and foremost um an environmentalist and I used business as a tool to to achieve an end trying to change the world to bring about sustainability fighting the climate crisis is a big part of that and so to me X are not radical I think we need to do all of the things they're saying and more we need purpose they're businesses that take into account the environment and people as well as making money and you can achieve a great deal when you do that but when you have run a business only for money you make bad mistakes they're bad decisions which cause problems so I think extinction rebellion they're saying all the right things but I don't think they're extreme we've got ten years and we actually have to be radical in the changes that we're making did you know that underneath Britain we had more coal more carbon in the form of coal than sadly it would same amount as Saudi Arabia didn't flow of oil enormous Matt so in 1850 we were digging up more coal than the rest of the world put together so you know we we have a huge legacy of if you like involvement and that legacy is still there because carbon dioxide tends to stick around in the atmosphere quite a long time we can't just simply say well we're now not the biggest emitter therefore you know you know we're clean we have to say well no we have we have a duty of care to use our very high wealth high skilled economy to show the way and to actually decarbonizing economy I think we're making it very clear that something really needs to be done and done now do you think any of us really want to be on the streets of London for up to a fortnight risking arrest but nothing else that has been done beforehand I said that has ever worked if there is to be a planet a sustainable planet it's good levels of human life animal life wildlife it's fighting I think we all have the power as individuals fans of clubs voters whatever it is to lobby the people that we either give our votes to or give our custom or our support to to lobby them to change what they do to fight the climate crisis man city are just like us they could they could pick up this agenda and they could achieve a lot they could probably achieve more than we could because they've got a bigger audience you know if they pick this up ticket seriously they could do a lot so if I was a man City fan or speaking to one I would say you know get on the phone get on email get on the internet you know and tell them what you want but enough about the environment what about the football Dell Vince is inovative approach off the field has gone hand in hand with success on it in 2017 Forest Green Rovers got promoted to the Football League for the first time in their 130 year history and are now in the race for promotion to Ligue 1 we have a decent budget to get out of the National League and now we've got a reasonable one in the league you've recruited an excellent manager in mark Cooper Mart likes to play on the deck he likes to play it out from the back passing football we round for being a really good football team and it's an interesting project we don't spend beyond our means we have a reasonable budget we have young players that are worth quite a lot of money that we could sell to a free and that would pay for our budget so I think across the board the sustainability is what we try to stick to that we use stats as well game stats we've got heart rate monitors GPS is for our players so we can see how hard they're working we can we can see if a player drops off you can you can spot if a player is feeling a little bit under par from his performance on the pitch so really it's about it's about using science I would say being at the cutting edge of science you have to have big aspirations there's no reason why you can't go where you want to go you know it's just because it's a small place doesn't it doesn't mean there's a ceiling on it you know I think the Chairman's overly talked about wanting to be in the championship closer you get to that you have to start paying more money out but hopefully by then we have a new stadium we have increased revenue that can do it indeed part of this ambition is the plan to build a brand new stadium eco Park which is currently going through an appeal after it was an rejected by the council it's where we hope to go to next in order to kind of take the next big steps in our in our plan we want to get to the championship which is a couple of leagues higher than where we are now so first in the world to be made entirely of wood it looks beautiful as well so we really get the chance to top with a blank sheet of paper and show what can be done if you really want to however with these plans also moving the club out of the nails Worth area they haven't gone down well with everyone firstly with a new ground I'm totally against it myself I think so stupid idea I finished cute forest green forest green really plans look good the idea is good but it's just not far screen to me anymore it would take me a few years to get used to the idea but I'd never give up the club but I know a lot of people I go with probably woods know you've got the lowdown let's get on with the game about halfway through the first half still no nil or a screw robe is not necessarily looking like a team that's challenging for the title right now but they proved in this season so far Mansfield picking them back a little bare times but really impressed by the crowd like really good atmosphere that's great as well such a small town same as practically for one Nilka Forest Green Rovers now Aaron Collins one of their strive to score a fantastic goal edge of the bot beautiful goal on some really nice build-up players well you can definitely tell that people come in to Forest Green Rovers as well to watch some really nice football on the pitch as well manager mark Cooper seems to have them playing a lot of football on the floor as we've heard from fans before and yeah it just seems very very good good feel it one-nil so sadly James isn't with us today so I've got to do your beer review and the burger review but also burgers sold out so casting butt smells are pretty good let's see how it is really really good that's proper capacity not sure the exact ingredients out there tastes almost like a fancy pie little bit spicy not too spicy probably one of the best things I've had never honest and yet it's lived up to the hype from picks up the food that guy just goes to show doesn't have to be meat to be tasty that's what a bit mainly local cops want log so yeah that's give it a try again really really nice very very tasty for a longer didn't recommend it bought you can't support Green Rovers get yourself a ticket or something they're both really nice Khatri are much more I don't have to give them caste an actress so it's now two ones Forest Green Rovers we missed both goals due to being in the bar revered and pasty but you know wouldn't wouldn't change it for the world because you know was really good now man's fed pulled another goal back less than 15 minutes to go now as well so yeah getting a little bit nervous but forest green still on top still playing about a football so I'm still expecting a winner let's hope I'm not disappointed so there we have it finished - - obviously not the result of Forest Green Rovers wanted and it got a little bit heated towards the end there all-in-all had an amazing time down here and nails were spoken to so many great people involved the club fans people from the general area and the last thing a question that I get is that generally people are pushing in the same direction now of course some fans on as happy with the way that the club is going as others are but generally speaking feels like most people have adapted to the way that the club's changed over the last nine years are happy with what's going on the pitch better football obviously in the Football League now and obviously Dale Vince as an owner seems to be doing things that a lot of other football owners on he really cares about the community he really cares about doing something different with a football club and running it not only sustainably in an environmental sense but running it sustainably in terms of the football in terms of the business and that's a really refreshing thing to see especially with what we've seen happen to certain clubs in the football league over the last year so once again thanks to everyone at Forest Green Rovers so speaking to us thanks for making us feel so welcome if you enjoyed this video why not check out the last one we did it Knox County and of course subscribe to football daily for more amazing content and see you next time

Channel: Football Daily

Views: 63,105

Keywords: football daily, football news, football, soccer, transfer news, premier league, champions league, epl, la liga, serie a, bundesliga, highlights, goals, Forest Green Rovers: The Club Trying To SAVE The Planet! | Journeymen, Forest Green Rovers, Journeymen, Dale Vince, Notts County, Bury, League 2, EFL, Extinction Rebellion, Green Party, Saving The Planet, Vegan, Vegetarian, Sunday Vibes, Mark Cooper, Leyton Orient, Hector Bellerin, Bellerin, Arsenal

Id: uH0qdbviWBA

Length: 16min 4sec (964 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 28 2019