Rovers are Green for GO GO GO with Robbie

BLACKBERRIES are groaning from the thorns bordering the car park, but for Robbie Savage there are no snags.

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At Forest Green Rovers, the vegan warriors on a sleepy Gloucestershire hilltop, Savage is calling the tune like a jukebox.

In his first season as a manager at Macclesfield, the phoenix club where he was king of the rise from oblivion, the great pied piper won his first-ever promotion as player or boss at the age of 50.

Now he’s upwardly mobile again. FGR play in a certified vegan kit, and his team play such good football you could almost eat it.

They were serving butterbean tikka masala on the all-vegan menu in hospitality suites at the New Lawn when Sav popped in, 30 minutes before kickoff, to thank loyal patrons for turning out on a midweek night before the 4-0 demolition of Sutton United.

After selling his 10.9 per cent stake in Macclesfield, he has slipped into a cockpit where Troy Deeney and Duncan Ferguson didn't last long.

And just seven weeks into his remit to change the club’s culture on the pitch, and lead Rovers back into the Football League mainstream, Savage has the good people of Nailsworth eating from the palm of his hand already.

He is everywhere. Even in the gents’ toilets behind the goal his face adorns a ‘Vegan Army’ poster on the wall.