Stadium
Forest Green play at the New Lawn in the hamlet of Forest Green, a short distance away from Nailsworth and 400 yards from the club's former ground, the Lawn Ground, which had been home to the club since it was founded in 1890, and remained little more than a field until the club's continued progress demanded a series of upgrades from the 1950s. This included terraces, famously partial levelling of the pitch, the Trevor Horsley Stand and new Barnfield Terrace sponsored by Rockwool, the latter two being moved to the new facility in 2006.
At the start of the 2006–07 season, Forest Green opened The New Lawn. The Rockwool Terrace is at the north end of the ground and is named after one of the club's sponsors. This particular terrace is the location for Rovers fans and is a standing terrace. The Western Thermal Stand is the largest capacity stand at the ground and is a seated stand that contains seven boxes, the 'Green Man' public house, and conference and leisure facilities. The away fans are housed in the EESI stand, which was completed halfway through the 2007–08 season. The stand is seated and can house between 500–600, and was originally the Trevor Horsley Stand, which was taken from the Lawn. The eastern side of the ground is an open terrace available to home fans. Although the stadium can hold 5,147 fans, the highest league attendance was 3,021 against Oxford United. However, the highest all-time attendance was 4,836 for an FA Cup third round tie at home to Championship side Derby County. The usual attendance is between 700–1,200 for Conference fixtures and around 500–1,000 for cup fixtures.
In April 2009 the ground hosted the Conference League Cup final, broadcast live on Setanta Sports.
In June 2011 the club began work on making the pitch at the ground the first organic football pitch in the world. This was influenced by the chairman, Dale Vince. In December 2011 the club then began work on installing 180 solar panels to the roof of the EESI stand, helping the club generate 10% of the electricity needed to run the stadium. In April 2012, Forest Green introduced the first robot lawn mower to be used by a British football club on to its playing surface. This followed a previous robot mower that had been in service at the club's former ground. The Etesia robot mower – known as a 'mow bot' – uses GPS technology to automatically guide it round the pitch without the need for human intervention and gathers power from the solar panels already at the stadium.
Read more about this topic: Forest Green Rovers F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word stadium:
“It’s no accident that of all the monuments left of the Greco- Roman culture the biggest is the ballpark, the Colosseum, the Yankee Stadium of ancient times.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“In their eyes I have seen
the pin men of madness in marathon trim
race round the track of the stadium pupil.”
—Patricia K. Page (b. 1916)