A historic moment in men’s football

Hannah Dingley is the first woman to manage a senior men’s professional football team in England. Photo courtesy of Forest Green Rovers FC

Paul Kennedy

For a few years of my life, my local football club was Forest Green Rovers FC. I never went to a game, and can in no way claim to be an avid fan, but geographically speaking, this was the team closest to where I lived.

I was in Stroud, a small market town in the Cotswolds, in the southwest of England, and Forest Green was the team closest to my home.

They are one of, if not the, smallest club in English football. Nailsworth, the tiny town where they are based, has a population of just 6,000 people, yet the stadium, The New Lawn, often fills its 5,000 capacity.

Forest Green Rovers are, it’s fair to say, trendsetters in the modern football era.

I accept you’ve probably never heard of them, but what they’ve achieved in the sport over the past 10 years or so, puts Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona and Real Madrid to shame.

They are not just green in name, but very much green in nature too.

The pitch is the only organic surface in the English Football League which captures rainwater and recycles it back for irrigation and even their kits are sustainable – made from used coffee grounds, bamboo and recycled plastics.

They were recognised by the United Nations in 2018 as being the world’s first-ever carbon-neutral football club.

The team often travels to away games on an electric coach and, and unlike just about every other football club in the world, you can’t buy meat at any of the catering outlets at the ground, they are 100 per cent vegan.

This is all down to the dedication, ambition and foresight of the club’s owner and chairman, Dale Vance, a green-energy industrialist and former new-age traveller.

Dale has been in the news this week, after once again breaking new ground in football, boldly going where no men’s football team has ever gone before.

He’s appointed a new manager, and it’s a woman, the first-ever female to take charge of a senior English men’s football team.

Dale’s timing is perfect, his decision to make Hannah Dingley manager, albeit on an interim basis, comes just before the Women’s World Cup kicks off in Australia and New Zealand.

Women’s football has gained an awful lot of traction in recent years, but Dale’s move to put a woman in charge of a men’s team is a historic moment in the game.

Dingley is taking over from former Everton manager Duncan Ferguson, who left Forest Green by mutual consent a few weeks ago, having failed to avoid relegation to League Two.

Time will tell if she gets the job on a full-time basis.

If results go her way, and the team get back to winning ways next season, then of course she should. Her sex has nothing to do with it.

But the same must be said if the team isn’t doing well. She should be treated equally and exactly the same as a male manager would be, and if that means the sack, then so be it. VNS