The New Lawn, home of Forest Green Rovers, is not your average professional football stadium. It’s not in the heart of a post-industrial town or city but perched on a hill with views across the Cotswolds. Nailsworth, where it is based, is the smallest town to have hosted an English football league club.
The advertising hoardings are also a little different. Oatly and Quorn aren’t necessarily your typical sponsors but Forest Green are the world’s first vegan football club. At the first home game of the season, against Altrincham, in late August, fans are tucking into classic fare: pies, burgers, pasties, with not a meat filling in sight. “It’s really good,” says Dave Adams, a Nottingham Forest season ticket holder who describes Rovers as his “second club”, of his pasty. “I’m not vegan, mind, but I’ve eaten nothing I haven’t liked.”
