As Cornish clubs in the English Non-League football pyramid continue to rise up the divisions, success on the pitch needs to be mirrored off it in the club’s sustainability practices. With an ever growing need to be green and sustainable, clubs are being faced with difficult decisions to make.
While the Football Association do have sustainability models and guidelines, these are not enforced onto non-league clubs, with advice offered, rather than made mandatory.
Mousehole AFC, one of the furthest sides West in Cornwall, are experiencing their first season in the Southern League after gaining promotion last campaign, meaning travel for away matches has increased considerably. Club Secretary Andrew Large says that “because as we have found out at the club, some of the green measures require investment, and since the football clubs in Cornwall do not have a lot of spare investment cash, it’s a question of doing what you can, small-scale, but heavily intentioned for the future as and when things permit financially.”
Mousehole decided to break things up into six categories: Energy, Catering, Transport, Stadium, General and Monitoring of Outcomes. This final category ensures that the organisation follows through with their promises. Within these six categories are 27 initiatives. However, with the need to provide ground improvements to stay in the division, such plans have been pushed back.
Large continued: “My thought is that as time moves on, organisations will be asked or required to provide their green strategy or action plan. What it could be tied into is grants - ‘you won’t get a grant for anything unless you can submit your audited green action plan’. I don’t think at the moment, it is feasible for it to be a totally regulated requirement.”
Helston Athletic are pushing for promotion to the same division Mousehole are currently in. Chairman Paul Hendy listed some of the initiatives the club are taking to be more sustainable:
Recently switched from one-use matchday plastics to reusables
Energy is now purchased from green generated sources
Upgrading of pitch floodlights to LED, thus reducing power consumption by 50% with 811 kg per annum carbon emission reduction.
Mark Huckle’s company Piran Films covers several of Helston’s matches, and he shared that: “What I think would drive it forward is if there is money in exchange for going green. They need some sort of financial inducements.”
Whilst clubs are beginning to implement more ‘green’ measures, with other more urgent matters needing to be attended to to keep clubs afloat, without FA funding, implementing more serious sustainable projects remains difficult for Cornish clubs.
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