ROBBIE SAVAGE on life managing vegan 'village club' Forest Green Rovers, his new love of Quorn and pea curry, his crippling insecurities, why Macclesfield made him 'ill' and his punditry plans

Robbie Savage certainly did not plan it this way, swept by football’s invisible forces upon the verdant slopes of rural Gloucestershire to reheat the world’s first vegan football club.

He never expected to go into coaching for one thing. It was always all about broadcasting for Savage when the time came to stop playing. His sights were set on being the next Gary Lineker not the next Sir Alex Ferguson.

Yet here he is, perched behind his desk in dark training kit, surrounded by lists of players and upcoming fixtures scrawled onto whiteboards, digesting his first defeat of the season and a pea curry lunch in an oversized marquee pitched in a field near Stroud while enthusing on the future of Forest Green Rovers and a new stadium that will rise across the road.

'I thought I’d spoken a lot as a pundit, criticising,' says Savage. 'And I’d been director of football, where I found if you speak some people will think you’re interfering.

'So, when this came up, I thought, "Why not give it a go and prove people wrong again?". My boys said: "What’s the worst that can happen, Dad? You get sacked? If that’s the case, we know you’ll have given it your best shot." One thing I’m not scared of is failure.'

As it happens, it is going rather well. Forest Green sit second in the National League table. Last season, Savage’s Macclesfield team finished as Northern Premier League champions, losing only three times. Across 56 league games, he has lost only four with a win ratio close to 80 per cent.

The sample size is small and from the depths of the English football pyramid but it still makes you wonder if Savage has belatedly stumbled across his true calling.

Fourteen years after retiring from professional football at Derby County to focus on a media career he is cutting back on that work to devote his attention to management.

Savage still co-hosts the Sunday edition of the 606 phone-in show on BBC 5 Live with his pal Chris Sutton and appears as a pundit and co-commentator for TNT Sports for midweek European games when possible.

On Thursday, he declined a hosting role in Wembley’s corporate lounges at the friendly between England and Wales to attend a two-hour Zoom session as part of the studies for his UEFA A Licence, a qualification he requires before he can advance to his Pro Licence.

'At 50 years of age, I didn’t think I’d be living on my own in an apartment in Cheltenham away from my family,' says Savage. 'It’s hard but they’re the sacrifices you make. Sacrificing, dedicating. I’ve sacrificed all my life. I haven’t got where I’ve got by doing things half-hearted. I’m all in.'

The story of this accidental manager begins in 2020 when Savage joined with business partner Rob Smethurst to buy Macclesfield after the club had been relegated from the EFL and wound up in the High Court.

There were debts of more than £500,000, no players and a stadium in disrepair but their phoenix outfit was ready to compete by 2021-22 in the North West Counties, the ninth tier.

Savage spent three years as Macclesfield’s director of football before stepping into the manager’s role in 2024 and, having led them into the National League North, the third promotion in four years, and signed a new contract, he quit for Forest Green.

'The right point to leave,' he insists. 'I couldn’t have achieved any more. I look at pictures of me at the end and I looked ill. I was ill. Because of the pressure.

'I was doing the majority of stuff. Making sure signs were up, designing the kit, getting it branded, in the bar making sure the orders were made and taking deliveries. I just needed that release.'

Forest Green are only one step up in the pyramid but a world away in terms of resources and ambitions under the club’s owner and green energy tycoon Dale Vince.

'We’ve got analytical staff and recruitment staff,' says Savage. 'We’re going to employ north and south scouts, feeding into the sporting director. We’ve got three fitness coaches and two physios, we’ve got two chefs, four groundsmen, two in the media team.'

His assistant John McMahon has moved with him from Macclesfield. Sporting director Mark Bowen is a former Wales team-mate who coached him when he was at Birmingham and Blackburn and a valuable font of wisdom for a rookie boss.

'People say Forest Green is not as big as Macclesfield, not as historic and don’t get as many fans, and maybe that’s the case but it’s the next incremental step for me,' says Savage.

'It’s about opportunity. I’ve been offered jobs at clubs higher up without the same opportunity. This is a full-time club in a lovely part of the world with a brilliant, passionate, caring owner.'

Vince bankrolled the rise of Forest Green, based in the village of Nailsworth, to the EFL where they enjoyed seven seasons including one in League One before successive relegations spat them back out in 2024.

The 64-year-old has never been afraid to be different. He appointed Hannah Dingley as interim first-team coach, two years ago, in between Duncan Ferguson and Dave Horseman.

Nor is he afraid to sack high-profile managers if it is not working out. Ferguson survived only six months. Troy Deeney, who followed Horseman, lasted less than one month.

'I think Dale’s a fair person,' says Savage. 'We speak every day, he’s a great person. He cares and I see in the stands he’s passionate. He owns the training ground. He will always do what’s right for the football club. He wants attacking football, wants to be entertained and we’ve done that already. That’s the objective. And to integrate the youth team. Let’s bring our own players through.

'Dale has his beliefs and when we’re here we adhere to that. We’re vegan, the food is amazing every day in the canteen. It’s high in protein, high in fibre. Lots of fresh fruit, salad. Lots of Quorn. We had a pea curry for lunch. Amazing, I love it.'

Savage’s first close encounter with Vince and Forest Green came when his son Charlie spent five months there, on loan from Manchester United before joining Reading.

'People mock us on social media,' he says. 'I’ll post a message to say, "safe travels to all the Forest Green fans", and they’ll reply to say I could just tell them all individually. But we were the first village club to reach the EFL. Nailsworth has a population of 6,000 so we have half the population at our games.'

Savage reduced his media commitments when he took the new job but did not want to abandon his other career and broadcasts from the BBC studio in Gloucester when necessary.

'I’m not naive,' he says. 'If I’d given all my media up and lost my first 10 games I’d have no job. There will be a question at the back of my mind if we go up to the EFL where I think, "Do I have to give up Sundays on 606 or give up the TV altogether?".

'But there might be a point if I’m not a very good manager that I’ll go back to the media because I love dissecting games, analysing formations, being around people.'

Management though has changed his outlook. 'As a pundit, I didn’t realise that until you’ve walked in a manager’s shoes, you will never know,' says Savage. 'I watch pundits now critiquing, and rightly so because that’s their job, but I’m thinking, "Unless you’ve been in it, you don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, you don’t know the parameters, you don’t know anything when you’re criticising managers".

'As a player, I wasn’t thinking like this. I was thinking about me, "Will I play the next game?". You’re usually only concerned about being in the starting XI and getting paid.

'As a manager, you are vulnerable. Your job is scrutinised every single day by media and fans. You can sign a four-year deal but the club can part ways at any given opportunity. You’ll get your severance but that’s irrelevant. If you lose games your contract virtually means nothing because they’ll make a change. And I’m fine with that.'

Savage, on a four-year deal at Forest Green, knows there is a lot to learn about his first full-time managerial role and shaping his own personality to its stresses. 'I’m very insecure, always have been,' he admits. 'I worry. I think about things deeply. As a player or manager, you put on an act. You’re almost on stage.

'When you win, that’s the pure emotion, the release. If I’d played well, I’d always ring the manager or the assistant manager and ask if they thought I’d play in the next game. I get high and low. People tell me I’ve got to have a middle ground, I can’t. We work so hard as a group in the week to get rewards on a Saturday and when we win, I enjoy every minute of it.

'When we lose, I take it to heart, I get down. I can’t be level. I’ve never been that person. I’m high or low and I know I’ve got to get better at that but that’s the way I am.'

Some of his old worlds will collide for Savage in the days ahead. First an FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie at Worthing to be screened live on TNT Sports with some of his punditry pals in tow.

'Monday night on the telly, big game on TNT, people wanting us to fail,' says Savage. 'Of course, it’s me and it’s Dale and it’s Forest Green. We’re not the biggest but we’re probably the highest-profile club in terms of the media in the National League.'

Then, next Saturday, his 51st birthday, he takes Forest Green to Carlisle, managed by Mark Hughes, his hero as he came through the ranks at Manchester United and later his boss at Blackburn and Wales.

Back to the quest for promotion upon which, ultimately, his success will be judged.

'We’re going to give everything we’ve got,' says Savage. 'If we fall, if we don’t go up, we’ll go again next year. And then we’ll go again the year after because I’ve got stability with the four years I’m here. We will go up, and if we don’t I know the consequences.'