On a hill just outside the quiet Cotswolds market town of Nailsworth, surrounded by woodland and bucolic hills, there is a road called Another Way.
“Another Way” means an alternative ethos — a different way of life. The road leads to the New Lawn, home of Forest Green Rovers, best known as the most environmentally sustainable club in world football and the first to be certified by the United Nations as carbon-neutral.
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For years, visitors would remark with curiosity on the electric car-charging points, the vegan menu (for fans and players alike) and the organic pitch, maintained with a solar-powered robotic mower and treated without chemicals and pesticides.
Car-charging points are commonplace now, but Forest Green have taken sustainability to another level: kits made from waste coffee grounds and recycled water bottles, an electric bus to take the team to their away games and plans for a new stadium designed by the late Zaha Hadid to be made almost entirely from ethically sourced wood.
Under the ownership of Dale Vince, a former New Age traveller and self-styled “hippy drop-out” who is now Britain’s most successful and high-profile green industrialist, Forest Green have been one of English football’s most unlikely success stories of the past decade.
A club that spent the first 128 years of its existence playing in non-League backwaters won promotion to the Football League in 2017 and went up to League One, the English game’s third tier, five years later.
Suddenly, improbably, “the little club on the hill” were competing at the same level as Derby County, Ipswich Town, Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday. Vince said his ambition was for Forest Green to become a club who could sustain themselves — in every sense — in the Championship, one step down from the Premier League.
But last week, Forest Green were relegated for the second time in 12 months: from League One back to League Two and now, with barely a whimper, back to the relative wilderness of the National League.
Stories about teams losing their Football League status usually follow a familiar narrative: a downtrodden town lamenting the struggles of a downtrodden club, long-suffering supporters holding back the tears and fretting about what the future might hold.
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But it didn’t feel like that in Nailsworth when The Athletic arrived the morning after those back-to-back relegations were confirmed.
Nobody in the queue at Hobbs House Bakery was talking about their local team’s woes. Grahame Everett, who owns a hair salon on Fountain Street, said his customers had been talking about Liverpool and Queens Park Rangers that morning, but not Forest Green.
With a population of just over 5,000, it isn’t that kind of town. In many ways, Forest Green isn’t that type of club.
And as Vince pointed out in a statement the next day, “Relegation is something nobody wants, but it happens in football of course — and it’s not the end of the world.”
Another Way. It had never been football’s way.
Shortly after Forest Green launched their exclusively vegan menu in 2015, there was much hilarity when a newspaper printed photographs of their players outside the local branch of bakery chain Gregg’s, including powerhouse star striker Jon ‘The Beast’ Parkin eating a pepperoni pizza.
Opposition fans were slow to warm to the hospitality at the New Lawn, as if longing for the traditional terrace fare of molten-hot meat pies or over/undercooked burgers. Taunts from the away end have ranged from “Where’s your burger van?” to “You vegan b*****ds, you know what you are” or even, in the case of Bath City, going years back, repeated chants of, “Meat! Meat! Meat!”
But within the football industry, the initial sense of bemusement gradually began to give way to a willingness to learn from Forest Green.
Premier League clubs have sought Vince’s advice on sustainability programmes. In October, a delegation from leading German club Borussia Dortmund arrived in this quiet corner of Gloucestershire seeking greater insight into “another way”.
These days, various fans might find their clubs taken over and used as vehicles to advance the ambitions of a nation-state or an energy drink manufacturer — or indeed those of a bigger club. Forest Green have become a vehicle for Vince’s environmental campaigning, not least for his green-energy company Ecotricity.
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It has worked, in part, because of Forest Green’s on-pitch success. Over time, they came to be admired not just for their sustainability programme but for a smart, well-run and progressive football operation.
They won promotions under the management of Mark Cooper and then Rob Edwards playing an attractive style, developing players and, in the case of Kieffer Moore (now at Ipswich Town, on loan from Bournemouth), Ethan Pinnock (now at Brentford) and Liam Kitching (now at Coventry City), selling them to clubs higher up the league ladder.
In Edwards, Forest Green seemed to have struck gold. But then things went awry.
To Vince’s annoyance, Edwards left abruptly for Watford in May 2022, shortly after promotion from League Two had been secured. Four months later, director of football Rich Hughes, who had appointed Edwards, departed for Portsmouth, who have just won promotion to the Championship.
And everything that has happened at the New Lawn since then — the departures of another four head coaches, two chief executives and another director of football — has reflected the kind of turbulence that features in just about every story of a club in freefall, even one as avowedly different as Forest Green.
Among the large number of players and coaches who have come and gone from Forest Green over the past couple of seasons, there have been groans about the all-vegan menu at the club’s training ground.
The complaints have been less about the absence of meat on the menu and more about the lack of variety from one day to the next.
While the club’s matchday hospitality has been widely praised, the players’ food during their season in League One was described as “basic”, supplied by an outside caterer to their local-council-owned training ground in Chippenham, a 40-minute drive south from Nailsworth.
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“If you are going to go down that route, that’s fine, but you have to put enough money into it so the players enjoy the food and really buy into what the club are trying to do,” said one source, speaking on condition of anonymity to preserve his relationship with his former club. “Otherwise, some players will just get a takeaway on the way home and that is not what you want.”
But it was often pointed out internally that the team had won two promotions on a vegan diet. As an excuse for Forest Green’s results over the past two seasons, it is a red herring. Or at least a plant-based red herring substitute.
In any case, this season has seen a serious investment, with a full-time chef at the training ground, a part-time nutritionist and a new, high-end supplier — and the results haven’t improved.
As for the team’s electric coach, launched to considerable fanfare when the team travelled to Bristol Rovers on the day they secured promotion in April 2022, it has barely been used since that 60-mile (96km) round trip.
It was an entirely admirable initiative — in stark contrast to those Premier League clubs who think nothing of chartering a plane for a 14-minute flight to an away game — but Forest Green have not yet found a way to make the electric coach workable beyond the shortest away trips.
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The more serious issue around Forest Green has been decision-making.
In his statement the day after relegation was confirmed, Vince referred to mistakes made “in recruitment primarily”. He didn’t need to specify whether he was talking about coaches or players. It applies to both.
One source says he “heard great things” about Forest Green during the Hughes/Edwards period, but was immediately struck on arrival by a sense of dysfunction.
He cites the dramatic lurches from a possession-based style under Ian Burchnall at the start of last season to a more “up-and-at-’em” approach under Duncan Ferguson last season and a similar switch this season, going from Ferguson to former Southampton coach David Horseman (via Troy Deeney) to Steve Cotterill.
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To the outside world, the appointment of Deeney last December smacked of desperation — or a publicity stunt on Vince’s part. The former Watford forward had been player-coach at Forest Green since August but, despite possessing a UEFA A Licence, had no direct management experience.
That his tenure lasted just 30 turbulent days — including censure by the club for scathing criticism of several of his players in a post-match interview and a four-game touchline ban for threatening the fourth official during a match against neighbours Swindon Town — met with little surprise.
Vince felt those two incidents reflected badly on the club and made Deeney’s position untenable. Saying he “would rather watch Antiques Roadshow” than his struggling team caused a stir. Claiming there were “too many babies” in the dressing room and that “the inmates are running the jail”, singling out full-back Fankaty Dabo for the harshest criticism, made things worse.
But some within the club felt the 35-year-old could have been a success if only he had curbed his tongue. Although Deeney didn’t win any of his six games in charge, there was felt to be a significant upturn in performances which deserved better than the three defeats and three draws they resulted in.
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Cotterill’s January appointment has certainly brought better results, with seven wins in 19 games since he took charge, but the damage had already been done. Three days after a 6-0 away defeat against Wrexham on April 13, relegation was confirmed.
It is little wonder recruitment has been an issue. Not since January 2022, when Edwards was in charge, have Forest Green started and ended a transfer window with the same manager in charge.
There has been fierce criticism of some of the players signed — and of some of those involved with the recruitment strategy. Hughes was effectively replaced by Stevie Grieve, who arrived as head of performance and recruitment in November 2022 but was gone within five months. Allan Steele then arrived from Brentford as director of football but was dismissed after nine months.
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There was an incident at a fans’ forum in March last year when a supporter described Ross Doohan and Amadou Bakayoko, signed from Tranmere Rovers and Bolton Wanderers respectively just two months earlier, as “the worst goalkeeper and striker in the world”. Vince responded by saying the club’s view “probably isn’t dissimilar”.
This infuriated both players, as well as some of their team-mates.
While Bakayoko failed to score in 19 appearances for Forest Green, he’d previously had respectable goal returns in League One with Coventry and Bolton. He is spending this season on loan at Dundee, who are currently sixth in Scotland’s 12-team top-flight Premiership, and has six goals in 32 league appearances for them.
A common view around the club is that the Bakayoko episode sums up the confusion of the past two years — not that he is a bad player by any means, but that he was signed by Grieve to address Burchnall’s requirements, only to struggle under a new manager with a different style (Ferguson) and find himself used as a stick with which to beat a departed head of recruitment.
For those few months, Ferguson, who signed a five-year contract for what was his first true crack at management after two brief interim spells with Everton, called the shots. But having won only one of his 18 games in charge, he was relieved of his duties a few days into pre-season training last July over what sources describe as “a lack of alignment” between his vision and that of Steele, who was by then in charge of recruitment.
There followed the much-heralded appointment of academy manager Hannah Dingley as interim head coach, overseeing the club’s pre-season preparations. Vince was accused of using a female coach for a publicity stunt, but he pointed out that she was “easily the most qualified” coach left at the club and a natural choice — as well as, he hoped, an inspiring one.
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That seems an age ago. Now, with Steele the latest to be moved on, Forest Green’s entire vision is to be built around Cotterill, a veteran of the lower-division scene but very different, in terms of outlook and playing philosophy, to Edwards, Burchnall and Horseman and what had previously been perceived as “the FGR way”.
If “Another Way” was ever felt to relate to football, it is all about pragmatism now.
Despite the loss of direction over the past two years, there are no great howls of fury or indignation among Forest Green’s supporters.
Relegation from the EFL was greeted by the majority in a “fairly sanguine” manner, according to Phil Doble, of the FGR Supporters Club. Their final game of the season, a 1-0 win over Notts County on Saturday, was played in a cheery atmosphere, far removed from the anger that surrounded Oldham Athletic’s relegation from the Football League two years ago.
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“In some ways, we have spent the past seven years slightly rubbing our eyes, particularly going to places like Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday when we were in League One,” Doble says. “You’re sitting there thinking, ‘B***dy hell, this was a village team. I can’t believe where we’ve got to’.
“Two successive relegations is clearly disappointing, but I do get the impression most of our fans are fairly sanguine about it and pleased that Steve Cotterill appears to be staying on and that the chairman seems determined and has promised to ‘move heaven and earth’ to get back up again.”
They have looked a far less stable club in recent times. February saw the abrupt dismissal of five key staff members, but Doble describes the overall sentiment towards Vince as “95 per cent positive”. “I think there’s a general recognition that he’s taken the club to places it hadn’t been to in 130 years,” he says.
Are supporters on board with the environmental crusade? “The vast majority are, yes,” Doble says. “There was some suspicion at the beginning, but that has worn off. Even if people might think some of it is a bit weird, it’s a good kind of weird. And, without question, it has benefited the club.”
That is an underestimated aspect of the Forest Green story.
The club made just over £4million in commercial revenue during the financial year ending June 30, 2023. A large chunk of that is from Vince’s Ecotricity firm, but he can cite a genuine synergy between his businesses. For environmentally-conscious brands, an association with Forest Green might resonate more than a sponsorship deal with a more high-profile club.
At many clubs these days, the advertising hoardings are for online bookmakers, unknown cryptocurrency firms and big global corporations. At Forest Green, you get green-energy companies, vegan products and wildlife charities.
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Despite the commercial revenue, the club made a pre-tax loss of £1.36million during their year in League One — in part due to a wage bill that spiralled from £3.5m in the 2021-22 promotion season to £4.7m. Their wage budget this season was among the highest in League Two, yet they have again ended up relegated.
For a time, attendances rose significantly: from an average of 949 in the 2010-11 season, their first under Vince’s ownership, to 2,772 in their first campaign as an EFL club seven years later.
But even in that promotion-winning campaign under Edwards two years ago, the average attendance didn’t climb beyond 2,715.
It was higher the following season (3,148), but that was the second-lowest average in the third division and, with the team struggling on the pitch, crowds were swelled significantly by the away fans of clubs such as Derby, Ipswich, Portsmouth and Wednesday.
This season’s average attendance dropped to 2,473 — not just lower than the 71 other clubs across the three tiers of the EFL but also 10 of the clubs in the National League, one division below.
Saturday’s attendance of 3,610 was their second-highest of the season, helped by heavily discounted prices for younger fans. But even then, away fans accounted for 1,169 of the turnout — and there aren’t many clubs in the National League with followings like Notts County.
With solidarity payments from the Premier League reduced now that they will be dropping out of the EFL, Forest Green’s reliance on commercial income will increase.
Some fans have wondered whether Vince, whose media presence and influence have grown since he threw his support and financial support behind the opposition Labour Party for the general election that’s coming in the UK at some point in the next nine months, still has his heart in the Forest Green project.
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He could not be persuaded to answer questions about the club for this article, but his commitment to Forest Green appears steadfast.
That “heaven and earth” message was followed a week later by a club statement detailing the investment and progress made at Eco Park, the intended site of their new home ground. A planning application has been submitted for the proposed all-wooden, 5,000-capacity stadium and two pitches have been installed at the adjoining training centre, which they expect the first team to be able to use for the start of pre-season training in July.
There has long been a question of whether Forest Green could ever attract enough supporters to fill a 5,000-capacity stadium.
Vince believes that in time, in a more accessible location close to the M5 motorway, they can — and that, regardless, the Eco Park project will set a green standard for the rest of the football industry, in its own time, to aspire to.
As for Forest Green’s on-pitch ambitions, it is six years since the club introduced three small stars on the backs of their jerseys. The first, which has been filled, signifies their arrival in the Football League. The second was filled in 2022 after promotion to League One. The third remains greyed out, awaiting colour when/if they reach the Championship.
But Vince and Forest Green will not apologise for thinking big or for thinking differently.
In a sport where a desire for world domination frequently overrides concern for the planet, their success story has a certain appeal.
Almost everything at Forest Green is sustainable. Only the club’s ambitions, it seems, were not.
The hope around here is that the ambitions and the vision can be recycled.
(Top photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
