Clubs all across the country make changes for Green Football Weekend
More than 85 of the UK’s top clubs - including the whole of the Premier League - are coming together from today (Saturday) until Monday for Green Football Weekend.
Newark and Sherwood United is a plant-powered club that serves vegan food at home games with produce locally sourced from an allotment near the ground.
At a recent home game, the club gave out samples of vegan sausage rolls to home and away fans.
The players also wore a green armband in support of the campaign.
Green Football Weekend will raise awareness of the impact of climate on football, announce new sustainability commitments, and support their fans to make a difference on climate.
They will be giving the Green Football Weekend matchday experience a veggie twist, with the three biggest club caterers joining forces to promote delicious plant-based burgers and pies.
"Eating more veg can not only improve health and playing performance - it also helps protect our world," said a spokesman for Green Football Weekend.
"If the UK’s football fans ate one veggie meal a day, it would save as much carbon as taking 5.5 million cars off the road.
"Clubs will be joining thousands of fans across the UK, who over the past two weeks have been scoring goals by taking climate-friendly actions to help their team win the Green Football Cup."
Activities are being encouraged by clubs such as downloading the Green Football Weekend Veggie Cookbook, using an AI recipe generator to
plan their next veggie meal, leaving the car behind, and switching to a green energy provider.
Highlights of the Green Football Weekend campaign include:
● Chelsea Women will turn their menu veggie, with a majority of plant-based options on offer, and Conor Gallagher, Jessie Fleming, and Niamh Charles joined school children doing a Green Football Weekend lesson.
● Crystal Palace will switch plastic beer cups for paper, and their first team players cooked up a feast of plant-based food that will be available at the Green Football Weekend match.
● Bournemouth invited schoolchildren to the ground to hear what they think the club should do on sustainability.
● QPR has joined the Sustainable Travel Charter, which commits its club to travelling more sustainably.
● Watford FC will announce a sustainability platform to help the club log how their fans travel and also contain recipes and tips for fans.
● Wycombe Wanderers has launched their new sustainability strategy, created in conjunction with fans and fronted by PFA sustainability ambassador David Wheeler.
Wolverhampton Wanderers will share a progress report on their strategy launched last Green Football Weekend.
● Clubs including Leeds United and West Bromwich Albion have trained their hospitality staff in plant-based cooking — while others such as Fulham and Southampton have run sustainability training for their Academy teams.
● Arsenal and Liverpool are holding a veggie lunch for fans with Arsenal legend Mathieu Flamini and will hold collections of vegetables, fruit, and other foods for local food banks.
● Exeter City is offering free tea and coffee for fans who travel by public transport to the match and is putting on a veggie hospitality menu.
● Clubs including Southampton, Blackburn Rovers, Leeds, Derby, Bristol City, and Portsmouth will be wearing green armbands to show their support for tackling climate change, while Walsall will be wearing their green third kit instead of their away kit.
● Southampton Women will be offering 25% off plant-based food at the game, have free vegetable soup and vegan cupcakes available, are giving out 500 packs of tomato seeds, and are doing a vegan cook-along with player Rosie Parnell.
● West Bromwich Albion will launch a new sustainability steering group and have removed single-use plastics from the training ground.
● Former world champion triathlete Kate Strong is cycling the matchday ball from Forest Green Rovers to opponent Colchester United.
● West Ham United did a veggie bake-off with Great British Bake-Off winner Matty Edgell, Michail Antonio, and Vladimir Coufal, hosted by JaackMaate.
● Swansea City will do a litter pick with Academy and club staff.
● Brighton & Hove, Bristol City, and Tottenham Hotspur will showcase their sustainable food production with local farmers and kitchen gardens.
● Bradford City will launch a vegan menu at their café, and two first-team players had a
cooking lesson from a local plant-based restaurant.
● Bristol City’s famous fans Tony Robinson and Joe Sims will be taste-testing courgette
cake and beetroot cake made by local school kids, and half of the food offered to fans is
locally sourced, coming from within a 12-mile radius.
● Clubs including Walsall, Everton, and Bristol City will put on fan zone activations to
educate and entertain fans, including holding veggie taste tests.
● More than 80 clubs are holding Green Football Weekend activities with local school
children and community groups.
● More than 70 players, club nutritionists, and famous chefs have contributed recipes to the Green Football Weekend Veggie Cookbook, including Raheem Sterling, James Ward-Prowse, Demi Stokes, Jen Beattie, Hawa Cissoko, Amy Turner, Raymond Blanc,
Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall, Levi Roots, BOSH!, Ainsley Harriot and Tom Kerridge.
"The future of football is at risk due to the effects of climate change, with 150,000 games already cancelled per year due to pitch flooding," said the spokesman for the campaign.
"By 2050, a quarter of UK football grounds will be flooded, with one in four teams expecting partial or total stadium flooding each year."
Peter Crouch said: "I have been going to matches with my dad since I was little and getting a pie at halftime was as regular as clockwork.
"Food has always been a massive part of being on the terraces, and it's brilliant to see so many clubs promoting veggie options across Green Football Weekend.
"Eating more veg is an easy way we can all help protect our world - not to
mention stay healthy.
"With more and more pitches flooding, climate change is threatening the future of football.
But together we can do something about it.
"We can make sure every football-loving kid can enjoy the life of playing we have all been able to.
"Football can be an amazing force for good, and it's so encouraging to see so many clubs, players, and fans coming together through Green Football Weekend to talk about and take action on climate.
"That's how change will happen."
Amazing prizes are up for grabs for anybody taking part in Green Football Weekend, including tickets to the Championship Play-Off finals, a behind-the-scenes Sky Studios tour, tickets to Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter, and Football Manager game codes.
