Vegan Football Club Forest Green Rovers Promoted To League One

The world's first vegan football club Forest Green Rovers secured promotion to League One after a draw with Bristol Rovers last Saturday. Only one point was required at the match on the Memorial Stadium and a goalless draw 0-0 stamped the promotion.

It's the first time in the 133-year history of the Gloucestershire-based club. Forest Green Rovers are also the smallest club to reach English football’s third tier and first ever vegan club that achieved it.

Rob Edwards, Head Coach, said: “It’s hard to put it all into words. I was emotional at the final whistle. I’m so pleased and so proud of this group.”

"We’re certainly going to enjoy the moment. It’s difficult to compare winning promotion as a player and as a head coach. It’s a brilliant feeling. As a player, it’s the best times of your life, but this is certainly the proudest moment of my professional career."

The club is owned by Dale Vince, environmentalist and entrepreneur who founded the UK's first green energy firm Ecotricity. Today, the company is the UK's only certified vegan electricity provider supplying around 200,000 households across the country.

Everything about the Forest Green Rovers club is eco-friendly and sustainable. The club is fully vegan which means all the menu served there is entirely plant-based. The players use recyclable tracksuits, reusable water bottle and they play on organic pitch. Soon, they will move to their brand new impressive low-carb wooden stadium and start building a training centre aimed to be their hub and football academy.

In 2018, Forest Green Rovers received the United Nations’ Momentum for Change award for climate action. 

Forest Green Rovers are the first team in the world to travel to sporting events by zero-emissions electric coach. The 48-seat electric coach is manufactured by the Chinese firm Yutong and would cost £325,000 to buy was rented by the club.

“This is the last piece of the jigsaw for us,” Vince the club's owner, told The Guardian. “The way our team travels is probably the biggest thing within our control that we hadn’t yet dealt with. Beyond that the really big thing we’re going to do is move to Eco Park, [a new stadium] built from wood, which has the lowest carbon footprint of any material in the world. It is good to be pushing the boundaries, otherwise you get a lot of box-ticking.”