As the leading football club in the UK to drive sustainable practices within its infrastructure including pitch and groundscare environmental maintenance, Farmtrac’s FT25G completes Forest Green Football Rovers Club’s range of all-electric machinery choices at the stadium and training grounds.
The club’s continued process of improvement within the football and sporting industry has demonstrated what can be achieved and becomes the benchmark for clubs and sporting locations around the world to follow.
Nick Johnstone, head of pitch development and maintenance, explains how this strive for sustainability impacts his job: “We have the first professional fully organic pitch. We don’t use pesticides or synthetic fertilisers and all our machinery is electric. This stops us using fossil fuels and cuts our carbon emissions and noise pollution.
“Over the next couple of years, we want to provide the best possible surface for our players in the most sustainable way and using the Farmtrac tractor will help with that. It’s used with various bits of kit to regularly groom, rake and brush the surface. We’ve also used it with a dimple seeder to overseed the pitch.”
Forest Green Rovers Football Club’s Nick Johnstone with Farmtrac’s electric tractor which completes the all-electric machinery choices at the stadium and training grounds.
And the Farmtrac tractor’s role will only increase when the club moves to its new training ground says Nick: “The tractor will become one of our most used bits of kit when we make the move to our new training ground. As well as all the work it does at the stadium, we’re planning on getting a tractor mounted sprayer so we can use it for spraying too.”
We needed a lighter tractor to work on the pitch and keep the weight off it and the lightweight credentials of the Farmtrac means it does this. But also, the FT25G compares to other tractors in every way. It is easy to use and does everything that its diesel equivalent can do with no drop in quality.
Nick Johnstone
Head of pitch development and maintenance
Forest Green Rovers FC
It was a visit to SALTEX, the sports turf, amenities, and landscaping trade exhibition, that brought Farmtrac and Forest Green Rovers Football Club together: “I first heard of the FT25G at the SALTEX trade show. I was familiar with Reesink but had never used any of their machinery and I must say the experience of working with Reesink Agriculture has been very positive. I would happily recommend Reesink and Farmtrac to other groundspeople within the industry.”
So what’s next for the club? With its sustainability features including creating a biodiversity area, using solar panels on the stands to provide 20 percent of its annual electric needs, LED scoreboards powered by the sun and sustainable practices of equipment maintenance cleaning, washdown water reductions and recycling equipment with Bio-Circle also distributed by Reesink, it’s anyone’s guess.
But rest assured, it will be a joy to watch this proactive, pioneering club continue to pave the way when it comes to sustainability in football.
