Forest Green Rovers FC

This one involves a Thai restaurant in Harwich and a caravan parked just outside Great Yarmouth...

There is a football club from one of the most picturesque towns in England. Set in the rolling hillsides of the Cotswolds, it has an ancient history: a Roman settlement, incredible medieval churches, and an old mill town with a history of brewing. It's beautiful. And everyone seems to mock it. But they shouldn't. This club is, of course, Forest Green Rovers @FGRFC_Official. And they're the next #GetTheBadgeIn.

Now, I’m not here to get political. But if a multimillionaire steps in to support a struggling club, that’s a win in my book. If that millionaire happened to make his money from creating a homegrown energy supplier, providing electricity to the grid through wind farms, then I'd argue that's better than a Middle Eastern despot who makes their money pumping crap into the atmosphere. And if that guy started life as a hippy from Great Yarmouth, and if that club was itself founded by a guy from Harwich—well, you've got my attention. So, first—to Harwich, Essex. 9th July. The Half Moon Inn*. Edward Peach is born. His father was an engineer on HMS Simoon, an iron-screw troop ship that served in the Crimean War (one of Harwich's best pubs is called The Alma, after the Battle of Alma in that war...).

Anyway. Edward Peach would grow up and enter the Church, becoming a Congregational minister and serving in the small town of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire. It was here he set up a football team for local youth. He called it Forest Green, after the area of Nailsworth in which it was based. They competed in various local leagues with...not much luck. They finished the 1906–7 season on 0 points (they did win a game but then had 2 points deducted for fielding an ineligible player). Things picked up over the years. They won the FA Vase in 1981, became consistent in the Conference (5th tier) during the 80s and 90s, but struggled at times.

In 2010, @DaleVince bought the club. Vince, from Great Yarmouth, became a New Age Traveller, bimbling about the country, no doubt munching mushrooms and occasionally confronting the police for his right to party like a druid at Stonehenge (he did—in 1985). He said he installed a wind turbine on his caravan and then had a eureka moment: make more. Many, many more. His company, @ecotricity, currently produces 87.2 megawatts from its own wind turbines—and with the profits, they build more turbines. A plan designed to blow away the competition.

Back to the club: In 2011, the club changed its badge to its current version. The old badge was a copy of the Barcelona badge with some tweaks—a St George's cross, a solid green block, and black and white stripes to reflect the club colours. The new badge included a lion (for strength) and a unicorn (for "some magic"), along with the club's founding date, 1889. It's a good-looking badge, but I feel it missed an opportunity. Plucking two characters out of thin air seems very...American.

 Nailsworth, as stated, was a mill town and brewery, but as part of the Stroud District, its history includes famous woollen mills, military uniform production, and two waves of migration: the French Huguenots and European Jews. But they went for a lion and a unicorn. Not even a windmill. Alas.

The club today has big ambitions (somewhat stalled by a double relegation to the National League under a series of "even worse than the last" managers). That said, they've stabilised under Steve Cotterill and are playing some good stuff, sitting second in the league. Vince's impact has been transformational, though. A new badge and kit (black and green, from black and white—which does make sense from a branding point of view) was just the beginning. His decision to label the club the world's first "Vegan Football Team" brought it coverage in global and national papers. Extra money was put into the team and facilities, and an exciting new plan for the future exists: a new 5,000-seater stadium, made entirely from wood but looking sleek and modern, is due to be built in a new eco-park.

Football teams have always been spun out of the economic changes of their time. Most are steeped in the steel mills, coal mines, and railways of the Industrial Revolution. In this context, I think it's only fitting that some start to reflect the modern world (Hashtag United...maybe too crass an attempt). Green Energy is a huge employer across the UK, from ships bobbing up and down off Doggerland to engineers installing smart grids in Somerset.

Forest Green Rovers, and the industry behind them, are here to stay. #UpTheVegans *Today, it is a Thai restaurant called "Thai up on the Quay" and is phenomenal—I used to live right behind it.