On Saturday Tom Dumoulin briefly drove the fastest time trial. Right after him, Simon Yates plunged four seconds below his time. The reporter pushed the microphone under Tom’s nose. Did he already feel it on the way? Tom wiped the snot from his face and nodded resignedly. “Well, you always have a story …” A story that he apparently had no faith in. The reporter held the microphone in front of him until the words came. Dumoulin spoke them out as if they didn’t matter. “A corner here and there that could be faster … my climb … I didn’t have as much left as I had hoped.”
In the meantime, the Forest Green Rovers became champions of the League 2 in England. The club comes from Nailsworth, a village with six thousand inhabitants. Over the past five years, the Rovers have been drowsy. Their village is now the smallest English hamlet ever to have a professional club and that club is also the first climate neutral club in the world. With their solar panels, recycled shirts, electric bus and vegan food, the Forest Green Rovers are greener than the turf. Moreover, a turf that is not chemically processed by them and whose mower works on solar energy. When the Rovers were promoted to League 2 in 2017, sports commentator Bob Hunt exclaimed: “Cheltenham, Swindon, Newport – you’re going to eat humus next season because the Forest Green Rovers are getting into the league!”
Five seasons later, the Rovers move on to League 1. The club is living proof that humans don’t have to demolish their planetary home to keep playing. In fact, they show that the humus-lubricating, tofu-baking, vegetable gnats can make it to unlikely champions in electric driving.
AZ-Ajax, Vitesse-sc Heerenveen and Feyenoord-PSV played in the highest Dutch division on Sunday. None of these clubs is known for taking solid action against climate change. In fact, when they are allowed to go to a European football party, they all fly to places that they can easily reach by land. Not only do they not seem demonstrably to care about the future of man on Earth, rather they demonstrably do not. A country gets the clubs it deserves. Ajax drew against AZ, Vitesse lost to Heerenveen and Feyenoord drew an unlikely draw against PSV. In the big picture, the little Green Rovers can have all these monster clubs.
At the end of the Season of Humanity, winners and losers will come between the sponsor wall and the microphones. Behind the logos of Shell, KLM and TUI, you no longer see our fittest specimens fighting against the clock or each other, but against a forest fire. In the foreground, the reporter’s microphone will be fishing for answers. Did humanity sense it coming along the way? Humanity will think of Dumoulin: “Well, there is always a story to tell…” If the reporter does not remove the microphone, she will search for words. “We kept booking flying holidays … we kept eating meat … we didn’t take the turn fast enough and before the climb we didn’t have as much left as we hoped.”
Carolina Trujillo is a writer.