The Pledgeball Podcast

Ep 7: Can Comedy and Sport Save the Planet? feat. Stuart Goldsmith and Peter Smith

• Pledgeball • Season 2 • Episode 2

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0:00 | 52:41

In this episode, Katie flies solo to explore how unexpected worlds collide to tackle the climate crisis. Joined by award-winning stand-up comedian Stuart Goldsmith to discuss his Edinburgh Fringe show, Spoilers, looking at how comedy can disarm climate dread and combat inertia where traditional environmentalism sometimes struggles to reach everyday people.

Despite Stuart openly hating sport, the team calls in backup from Peter Smith, who drives sustainability at Ashton Gate Stadium. Together, they make the case for why football's passionate, tribal audience makes it the perfect vehicle for massive environmental action, proving that aligning climate goals with club loyalty can reach millions. Peter introduces the city-wide impact of Project Whitebeam and shares how local fans are already engaging with sustainability initiatives across Bristol.

The quiz is here in its usual glory as Stuart is grilled on stadium sustainability, uncovering surprising facts about local food miles, matchday travel logistics, and massive water-saving innovations at Ashton Gate, before the panel asks the ultimate question: can football save the world?

Find your club and make your pledge to protect where we play at pledgeball.org

SPEAKER_02

I am delighted to welcome to Pod. Who should we kick off with? Stuart Smith. Stuart, Stuart Smith.

SPEAKER_05

Stuart Smith.

SPEAKER_02

We just combined the two of you.

SPEAKER_05

Miguel I expected.

SPEAKER_02

Peter Smith and Stuart Goldsmith.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, the Farsi period Smith for the record. Sorry about your tired low-quality Smith there, Peter.

SPEAKER_02

And coming in, we have Lawrence Bronsmith. Uh, Stuart, let's kick off with your intro. Now I found two intros for you, one from Wikipedia and uh one is your own one.

SPEAKER_04

One's a Wikipedia that you didn't write yourself and that has been crowdsourced over 30 years. Sure. Let's have that one.

SPEAKER_02

So here's your Wikipedia one. Welcome to Stuart Goldsmith, British stand-up comedian and former street performer. That's it. Full stop. Welcome, Stuart Goldsmith, from his own website, climate comedian, podcaster, and business speaker.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't tend to talk about the 10 years at Covent Garden in a professional context, but uh it's all that comes up in comedy interviews. I was a street performer for a long time. I went, in fact, so Bristolian link here, I went to Circa Media, which is the circus school here in Bristol. I went there in 96, 97.

SPEAKER_02

We're actually trying to move away from the Bristol hippie feel of this pod.

SPEAKER_04

Are you? Oh, well, I've got I can't help with that, I'm afraid. Sorry. But no, so I mentioned before that I'm uh it's funny to hear myself referred to as a Bristolian. I am. I was born round here. I think I was born in Chippings Sodbury. And my family lived in Bristol till I was six, and then I grew up in Levington Spa, and I sort of regard myself as being from Lemmington Spa, but I've been living back in Bristol for 10 years, and so I feel like finally that's enough time now that I can accept the title of Bristolian. I do quite like it. I feel like it's got it's got slightly more of a cultural resonance than Lemmington Spa.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, what does make a Bristolian? Pete is definitely a Bristolian, aren't you, Pete?

SPEAKER_04

There we go. Very good, very good. He's just returned from Asdall. There we go. I know I know enough of the code words.

SPEAKER_02

So welcome, Peter Smith. Now, your intro, I'm actually going to read from your Top Trumps card, please.

SPEAKER_05

You're not gonna read from my Wikipedia page. What the hell? You've got a Top Trumps card. I don't have a Wikipedia page, but I do have a Top Trumps card. Oh my god. Yeah, I know. Which would you rather have?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, right. It's alright. There will be lots of appearances of this Top Trumps card because I also have a Top Trumps card. I'm apparently in Pete's family, but there's within the Top Trumps series, but there's definitely a bit of competition in who trumps which. So Pete works for Bristol Sport at Ashton Gate Stadium, looking after the stadium's development, support of travel and sustainability. Anything you'd like to add to that, Peter Smith?

SPEAKER_05

That's pretty good summing up, really. Charisma seven. A generous seven that one.

SPEAKER_02

They aren't out of ten. I think they're out of a hundred.

SPEAKER_04

I really panic then. As you know, and I've I feel we should make clear to the listener at some point. I know almost nothing about sports. And when you started talking about Peter Smith, who's got a Trump's card, I was like, this guy's like a famous sports person. I didn't know any of this. I don't, what am I gonna do?

SPEAKER_05

I'm completely out of my depth. Kings of Wessex first team, one appearance. Kings of Wessex school, second team, quite a few appearances, some off bench.

SPEAKER_04

I'm not qualified to say whether that's good or bad. I don't know what any of that means. It's it's a school team, seconds bad. Sure, sure. Okay, school team, seconds bad. Okay, got it, got it. Well, you're all right. I was I wasn't in any school teams, so you're way above me. Prowess, 10. Confidence. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02

So the top trunks cards you'll be glad to know have nothing around sport in them. Okay, gotcha. These are your skills to uh and you can choose one and then I'm marking Peter.

SPEAKER_04

I'm guessing what I think Peter's marks are.

SPEAKER_02

You're guessing who's better. Who are rated higher, me or Pete on iPhone? Oh, gotcha. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

So ready? You can have creativity, hands-on, listening, problem solving, speaking, teamwork, and using numbers. Which one would you like to go for?

SPEAKER_04

How many of them do I get? Can I do three or four? Or are we just doing one? I've got to pick that one up. Okay, I want to treat this as an actual game. So I'm gonna say Casey scored higher than Peter.

SPEAKER_02

I did.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, nailed it. Next one. Next title.

SPEAKER_02

Hands-on, listening or problem solving? Any of those? Problem solving, I think you are equal. No, Pete's actually rated himself 20 points higher than me.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He rated himself. This changes the game radically. You've got top Trump's card where you decided your own scores. This is as corrupt as FIFA. Does that make sense? Does that make any sense as a?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness, we've done it! You were the first, and we're done. That's a wrap. Okay, and then your last one. Would you like speaking? Should we have some speaking?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, let's speaking. So now what I realise the game is does Katie think she's better at speaking than Peter? And does Peter think he's better at speaking than Katie? Katie definitely thinks she's a better speaker than Peter. Is that fair? How did you come to that conclusion? You've been saying more. But this is her part. We're in her house. Okay, yeah, sure, sure. But I just think Peter's got listen, I don't mean this in a bad way. You seem like you've got more humility, Peter. Katie. I think you would have you would have even if you're even if you're a better speaker, I think you would have judged yourself lower.

SPEAKER_02

We've did you're probably right, actually. Although we have just concluded that he rated himself much higher for problem solving. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. But you are right. Speaking, he did rate himself 40 points less than.

SPEAKER_05

Lovely. Okay, great. Well, you're a good speaker, Katie. I'm happy with that. That's fine. See? Humility. I've nailed you.

SPEAKER_02

To the pod today. Oh, yeah, we're doing a podcast, aren't we? Sorry, I've got a bit confused. Do you know? Do you know what the themes of this pod are, do it?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, top trump so far. Which is a sport in my world. That's the closest thing.

SPEAKER_02

The aim of the pod is to discuss sport and sustainability. And that is why you're a perfect fit for this, aren't you?

SPEAKER_04

Oh, I am a hundred percent interested in 50% of those subjects.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I have just finished listening to one of your pods, actually. Oh no, I think it was actually a live recording when you spent most of it slagging off runners, actually.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, this is stand-up, a recording of my stand-up from many years ago. Well, yes. So for people who aren't yet aware, and I've done nothing to make them aware, I'm a professional stand-up comedian of some 20 years. And uh, we mentioned it in the Wikipedia context. I just don't consider that any of that accurate. So uh that bit at least is true. I've been a comedian for a long time, and yes, I did do material on a TV show, I think, at Montreal, just for laughs about how much I hate runners. And I can't remember the bit now, but it was like, yeah, basically they really annoy me. And then about six years ago, of course, I started running. I'm a dad in my early 40s, early at the time, and um, and I started running, and I actually managed to raise a substantial amount for charity by doing a sort of mayor culpa. I'm doing a 10k despite hating runners, and my worst thing is that I'm running, and someone next to me is like, get him! He's that guy that was slagging us off, and so yes. So uh I always I've always hated and feared exercise of any kind, and I still do now, even though I run about you know, weeks or welcome to the world of sport.

SPEAKER_05

I think most people who are a fan of sport and have a favourite club hate them and love them in equal measure, but always at the same time.

SPEAKER_04

That was that was never made clear to me. My ideas of sport are all based, I realise now, on my kind of probably 10-year-old self, and I hated school. I was quite an anxious, wobbly child in my school, not really the right fit for me. And um, and as a result, I thought sport was exclusively the purview of kind of people that just loved it and it was all they wanted to talk about, and there was no vulnerability in it. There was no like, my team has lost and I feel bad, and here I am being emotionally intelligent about it. I'd have been quite into that. As I've got older, I have experienced bits of sport. Like I've gone surfing and I've gone, oh, from the outside, surfing seems really alienating and like its own subculture, and you're not allowed in and it's all people being cool. And then you do it and you go, it's 90% just bobbing about having a chat while you wait for a wave. Same with golf. It's 90% a chat. So I think I I am open to the idea of sport being less sort of exclusive and cool and exclusionary than I had always assumed it to be.

SPEAKER_02

I think it strips you back to basically who you are when you play.

SPEAKER_04

That's the problem for me. I don't think I'm very good when I'm stripped back. All I've got is the obstacles.

SPEAKER_02

So, how did you enjoy your 10k then?

SPEAKER_04

I actually loved it. I loved it. But I tell you the difference for me is I loved it because it was through the centre of Bristol, and that means there was loads and loads of stuff to look at. The big the big switch for me with running came when I realized one, that whenever I'd run, I was in a cycle for years and years of doing no exercise for six months, feeling awful about myself, feeling guilty and rubbish and physically unfit every day. And then I'd make myself go running, I'd run too far, too fast, feel bad, and then not do it again for six months. So I realized if I am running at a conversational pace with someone I want to hang out with, absolute game changer, I can go for hours. So that was a big change. And then the other change is uh late stage diagnosis, ADHD, which is why this is such a confetti canon. But what I realized is if I've got things to look at and experience and talk about, then it's a completely different ball game. Someone told me, Oh, do you want to go and do the, I don't know if it was the Cardiff or Swansea half marathon, and they said, Oh, it's just along a beach. And I'm like, absolutely not. Through fields, absolutely not. I'll go insane. I'll go insane. Ten minutes in, I'll just be like, all I can think about is how much I hate this. But if you distract me, I'll go forever.

SPEAKER_02

You know, there's another Bristolian I read about, well, current is she Bristolian? She's moved to Bristol, an amazing Iron Man triathlete called Chrissy Wellington, who I mean, the Iron Man is insane. So it's like a triathlon, but extended as long as you can go for. So you run a marathon rather than, you know, a much shorter distance within a triathlon.

SPEAKER_04

Gotcha, okay.

SPEAKER_02

But she she did say you have to learn to overcome that boredom. And so she spent days running marathons on a treadmill in a basement, just staring at a wall. Oh what?

SPEAKER_04

To raw dog the boredom. Yeah. That's m get an iPod, mate.

SPEAKER_05

That is to catch 22. That's from pretty much. My guy works out that if you if you're bored all the time, it basically makes your life feel longer. So his effort to try and I think it's like Milo Minderbinder or something.

SPEAKER_04

He just he he manifests boredom to try and to try and make his life seem longer and more boring. My God, what's that? You get an extra 20 years, but they're all staring at a wall.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

What? I I can't believe you've got to master the boredom. Really? This your friend Chrissy, what does she like? Does she sort of disappear off in her head? Like you hear about people kind of in solitary confinement, kind of focusing on a dot of light and hallucinating on purpose and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but I think there's a strength in that. I mean, if you feel like you can get over any boredom, you know, because I think it is such a mind game, isn't it? Doing long distance races. So no, we should we should definitely get her on. We should definitely get Chrissy Wellington on. So anyway, moving to today's main theme, the podcast explores the interception of sport and sustainability. And it very much believes, or we as pleasure people believe, that sport is this real gem of an opportunity to combat the climate crisis, which we actually haven't talked about yet, because of course your comedy moved very much into that.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So today, what Pete and I are going to do is really make this case to you that actually you should join sports uh movement.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, it's an intervention.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, is that what you'd call it? So today we are going to do that so that you can join our sports movement to talk about climate change and ultimately, as we said, a pledgeable to protect where we play. Pete, obviously, I gave you a lovely Top Trumps entry, but would you like to give us a little bit more background around what you do at Ashton Gate day to day?

SPEAKER_05

Hello, my name is Peter Smith. I am the project director of the Ashton Gate Sporting Quarter redevelopment. What is that? The and uh it was the project manager of the Ashton Gate Stadium Redevelopment. So Ashton Gate is um currently home to Bristol City Football Club men's and women's team. It's home to the Bristol Bears men's team, and the women's team play a few games here every year. And we will, once the sporting quarter development has been uh delivered, it will be home to Bristol Flyers basketball team. So all of those sporting entities are within our uh group of our stable of sports clubs here. So we're in the room.

SPEAKER_02

We can play that, Stuart. That's a number of round balls and one slightly oval shaped.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I'm with you. I'm with you that I just still don't quite understand what the sporting quarter is. Is that the name of the building? Is it the name of this the bit of block that the building's on? Is it where of a group of people?

SPEAKER_05

It is the name of the development which we'll be delivering. So at the minute, here is even more vague. And in a few years' time, there will be a hotel and sports convention centre, which will be uh sort of a small mini arena type development to try and picture it, and that'll be where Bristol Flyers play. They currently play at STS College in North Bristol, which is wildly undersized for them. So we hope to deliver a new home to them to bring uh yes another one of our stables to play here at Ashton Gate.

SPEAKER_02

And the reason we brought Pete on is not only because he's a Bristolian, but also because Bristol City and Ashton Gate are truly leading when it comes to sustainable stadiums. So they have won multiple awards around this. So they've won the FSA Climate Action Award, the inaugural one of those. They have won, well, they've been awarded the EFL Green Club's Gold Award, which is one of very few clubs to have been awarded that within the FL, and are genuinely sort of leading the way when it comes to driving sustainability. And Pete, as an individual, has been driving this for well over 10 years now at the club. And this is why we are delighted to have Pete join us today, to make the case to Stuart that sport really is this place from which we can drive to true change. So just can you give us a bit of an overview, Pete, of the work that you have been doing at at Bristol City? Because it is it is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, you said we've been doing this for for 10 years, and to some extent that that's true. We started to look at properly um probably around 2018. And um, I'd say that that when I started to look at properly, there's a good couple of years of almost uh research we didn't have in-house expertise in this. It wasn't my background trying to wrap our heads around what environmental sustainability is a term meant, what it encapsulated, and how we would attack the problem. We were all set to sail our Merry ship uh out of the harbour just as COVID hit. So to extend that metaphor a little while, seeing that particular storm on the horizon, we kept the the ship in the safety of the harbour, reassembled the crew a few years later when we were clear, and then we launched formally in 2022. In a nutshell, we tried to do three very simple things, which is to recognise, measure, and mitigate our impact on the environment. And you've probably heard me say this before, Katie, but we always talk about the the recognized bit being the first step of that. Um and I think it's actually a really, really crucial piece that some certainly corporates miss and actually a lot of sports clubs miss. They they fail to recognise in the first place that they have an impact. And they talk about everything that they do as being um, you know, somehow changing the world, saving the world, and and actually it's not the case. We'll be honest about it. We we have an impact, we still have an impact, it's still too high, and we need to do an awful lot more. And we recognise that impact so that probably sits across five key what I call impact areas. In fact, they're the the effects of our our motorcycle random type. So we have an effect on climate change, waste, water, biodiversity, and air quality. And we are endeavoring to uh reduce that impact across all those five areas.

SPEAKER_02

And so you do some pretty cool things. Obviously, you've you've addressed the energy piece by installing solar, and you're looking at installing more solar. You make sure that is it 50% of your food is sourced for the concession stands sourced from within a 12 mile radius. Um really local production, and you donate food to a local shelter, any leftover food, then you obviously have held certain match days where you collect donated kit, etc., to reduce the amount going to second hand. So you've done, you know, you've done quite a lot to address a number of those different areas, haven't you?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean, we try and have a quick look, we try and log what we're actually doing and the th the items that we've assessed, even if we haven't progressed them. And and I think we last check we were well over 350 individual actions that we've taken since that we launched the projects in 2022. Some of those are really small, and some of them are really big particular items, and some of them are very direct impact uh here at Ashton Gate. So on-site energy renewal uh water saving devices have a very direct impact. And some will be using the power of support to uh extend the messaging, normalise behaviour, educate and uh provide co-benefits across the community, both within our fan base and also the local neighbourhood staff and anyone who will sit for five minutes and listen to us talk about it.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so Stuart, I want to move to you. You talked about sustainability at Ashton Gate, obviously, but you also moved from comedy into addressing climate. So I mean what what triggered that? Why did that happen?

SPEAKER_04

I started talking about the climate crisis about four or five years ago because I was feeling so much dread about the climate that I started talking about it on stage. And weirdly, at the time I was also a bit cheesed off with comedy. I it'd become a bit of a circuit, they call it a comedy circuit, you go round and round and round, and I felt like I it was a bit less novel than it had been before. And I found that talking about the climate crisis helped me process my climate dread, whilst also the challenge of trying to make it funny really reinvigorated my interest in gigging. I think post-pandemic, I think during the pandemic, I'd got quite accustomed to being at home with my family and not schlepping up and down motorways doing gigs all over the country. So I yeah, it was this lovely kind of marriage of ideas, really. The basically the basic starting point is that I was absolutely terrified because do you remember when um uh it was kind of early 2019 and this word coronavirus started creeping towards the front page over the course of a year? And in early, it didn't hit until March 2020, but in early 2019, I saw that word and I went, I think this could be something, you know. And I don't, I don't know if you remember, but I was right.

SPEAKER_02

And you're feeling the same thing about climate.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I realized I was feeling the same thing about climate. I thought this really is, I think this could be a real thing. Now, obviously, people will have been working in in sustainability as Pete has for uh, you know, 10 years or 30 years, you know. Um and they've been very aware of it. But I found that I wasn't having any conversations about it. And the conversations I were having about it were all doom and awful bleak things, and people don't want to bring it up because it's sad and depressing or boring. I think climate action and sustainability has this huge branding problem where it feels like boring homework that everyone's like one of the I do a workshop in climate comms for businesses. I do like a climate comedy show and a workshop package for executive education and you know, sustainability courses and things like that. And one of the things I say is as soon as you find yourself saying, Come on, guys, you've lost the whole of the climate movement. The people who are most inspired, most motivated to talk about it are often the people who are the most scared. And the fear and the panic bleeds into the conversation. And we all spend a lot of time going, come on, guys, you know, and and it it runs the risk of sounding boring and sounding like health and safety. It is.

SPEAKER_03

Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04

Where everyone sort of blinks and nods and goes, Oh, right, oh yeah, yeah, we'll look, you know, but it doesn't affect them. So what I'm trying to do with stand-up is try and give people permission to be worried, to laugh at some of our fears, to laugh at all of the ambiguities and the contradictions involved in facing the idea of climate and all of the all of the cascade effects, not just not just the cascades like the tipping points that could happen, this goes wrong and this goes wrong and this goes wrong, but the sort of the cascade effects of like if you start caring about the climate, you pull at the thread and you're like, oh God, does this mean I'm not gonna be able to enjoy anything? How am I gonna cope with this? How am I gonna cope with where my chocolate and my coffee comes from? And do you know what I mean? Or like all of it. As soon as you start caring about any of it, you're like, oh God, if I care about this, I'm gonna have to care about everything. And what I what I try and do with comedy is take those contradictions and those ambiguities and say, look, it's okay to consider this. Do you mean it's okay to go, oh God, uh I don't want to say anything about the climate in case everyone finds out that I flew to Portugal last year and they get me. Do you know what I mean? And that has a chilling effect. And we all go, oh, I don't recycle properly and I don't do oh, I'm not very good. And those things, all of that kind of fear and quiet and the way we quieten ourselves plays into the hands of the fossil fuel companies, who would love it if we all felt dreadful and said nothing.

SPEAKER_05

Or they keep the yeah. Everybody comes out every now and then, don't they? And they just attack anybody for not being purist because it's uh an attempt to put you back in your box and say nothing. Because unless you can be perfect, say nothing at all. And they know that if you're a nobody's perfect, and B, that by trying to act perfectly you will not have a voice because effectively you'd be living in some woodland somewhere without any clothes on, and and they know that.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, I'm Alex Moneypenny, and ahead of this summer's tournament, the Pledgeball challenge myself and Lawrence McKenna to travel across America just as a fan would without taking a single flight. So we hit the road to hear from real communities, fans, and players about how climate affects their everyday lives. Of course, though, we enjoyed the journey, savouring local food, watching grassroots football, and even doing a hot air balloon ride. Head over to either mine, Lawrence's, or Pledgeboard's YouTube channel to watch Route 26, losing sight of goal now.

SPEAKER_02

Well, instead of reading strikes as well, it's it's absolutely bizarre that it still feels as though we're having to persuade people to get on board with this. And yet and yet, what is contradictory about trying to you know, surely we all fundamentally agree with this, right? Anybody who who fundament fundamentally do you think doesn't agree with There are a s there are a small number of deniers.

SPEAKER_04

I think there's something like five percent of actual climate deniers who genuinely believe that it's all made up and it's a scam. And there's you know, five percent of people. Probably uh maybe two percent. I think obviously that number goes up to 40% in the American Senate. But um the there are genuine deniers, but there's an awful lot of grifters. You know, there's an awful lot of people exploiting Grifters. What was that? Grifters. Grifters, yeah, people who exploit the fact that the algorithm works on outrage. So if you have a YouTube show and you can start an argument in the comments section, you will physically make money. You'll immediately start making money. And that's why everything's terrible nowadays. There's a word for it coined by uh Corey Doctorow, uh, but I won't say it in case that word is not allowed. But people could look up that word. Um it's good. Am I can I swear on this podcast? I mean, I we haven't actually gone through these rules, have we? You can bleep it. It's called instification. Part of the part of the insh-tification process is everything getting worse, and part of that is driven by the algorithm of outrage, and so it does benefit people financially to say wrong things in order to make idiots argue.

SPEAKER_05

Well, absolutely, and there's also enough people sorry, with with with you say uh a few uh a small percentage of hardcore climate deniers, but they're very good at muddying the water and dragging other people with them by by throwing so much smoke in the air it's hard to see what's going on. So people will go, Well, I accept that climate change is real, but it's not for us, it's for China or India. Or I accept that it is for us, but what can we really do about it? Or I accept all that, but well, you've got to think about the economy and da da da da. And and even if they know it's not bad for the economy, they're pretty good at saying, Well, we just don't know, we might do so free better, or just so yeah.

SPEAKER_04

There's a lot of um I think what you have to realize, what we what listeners have to realize is that it's driven by money, it's driven by vested interests. There are lots and lots of billionaires out there who own media outlets and who own huge businesses, and it would be great for them if they could just keep making money until they die.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

The fact that there's this kind of revolving four-year CEO cycle whereby a CEO takes control of a company, strips all the assets, unbundles it if it's bundled or bundles it if it's unbundled, and takes all the money and then gets out. They just extract all the value for the shareholders and then they get out of Dodge. If we had a system whereby CEOs' pensions were linked to the climate or linked to the like the continuing success of a company, then it'd be a very different situation. So there are all of these vested interests and fossil fuel companies, which certainly in the States, more overtly than here, lobby in order to like pay enormous sums of money to people to vote in their interests. There is, if you are shaky on the climate and you think to yourself, and I say this with compassion, if you're listening to this and you're someone who is one of a very limited number of people who think that 99.9% of scientists are wrong, and you've seen the document that Exxon sent internally in the late 70s saying climate change is a real thing, and if we keep chucking all this CO2 in the atmosphere, then the planet will eventually get too hot to live on. If you deny all of those things, I do have compassion for you, but you have to be aware that your media outlets, and not to sound too wild-eyed here, but the literal billionaires in charge of the literal social media platforms and mainstream media platforms would love to support you in your thinking. So that's, you know, that is a real challenge.

SPEAKER_02

While they build they build their bunkers.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, exactly. While they build their bunkers, exactly. New Zealand's had to pass laws to stop billionaires buying land and building bunkers on it because they think New Zealand will be safe. Um, so we're all in this thing together, but we have to. This is the the challenge I've discovered just in the the relatively small amount of time I've been talking, learning, and and you know, communicating about the climate, is we have to motivate people to action without scaring them. We have do you know what I mean? And how do you do that? How do you run in and go, Wow, you asked. I find with every one of my shows I have to run on, and you may need to bleep this because I can't say it passionately any other way. I basically have to say, guys, you should be really scared. You're complacent at the moment. Be really scared. Okay, now you're scared, don't be scared.

SPEAKER_05

The house is on fire, but there is an emergency exit.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, exactly. What you've said completely rings true of everything that we do at Pedgeball and why we think sport is this opportunity. I mean, I think the thing that's amazing about sport is that you see groups of fans questioning structures in which they exist and not just accepting them. So, you know, we saw, for example, the creation of the European Super League or the near creation of it. And fans rallied and said, we don't want this, and therefore put a stop to it at that particular moment in time. It's not, you know, ticket prices, things like that. Fans are used to standing up and saying, no, we will not accept others making these decisions for us, others who have changed the game into something that is more corporate than it used to be. You know, it started off football as community teams, but as we have more and more owners come in where primarily their aim is to make money, then those priorities and the community feel and the intentions that clubs have have shifted. But fans are not averse to standing up and saying, you cannot take this from us. This is ours, this is for our community. I mean, uh, Pete, help me out here.

SPEAKER_05

Well, I agree. I think that's the fundamental is the structure that you talk about there, Kate. And it's uh as you've alluded to it, the this is not an issue that any one person can tackle on their own. So you need structures which do literally and emotionally bring people together. And weird though it is, sport achieves that probably better than almost anything. And so you you physically get lots of people into a stadium or a venue together. Um an awful lot of them, yeah. Um, you get people talking, and and I think it's you know, they are grown out of community uh organizations. Sports clubs were generally speaking, not set up to make money, some of them do, most certainly in the UK professionally don't. In fact, most lose an awful lot of money. But so you've got uh organizations which the reason to exist is is uh community-based, right? You then literally bring lots of people together, and this is a real critical bit of it that you bring people together from very, very different backgrounds. So when that's on the terraces, and that benefit extends way beyond environmental sustainability, I think it's a great societal thing, it's a great equalizer. Now, lots of entertainment things and workplaces and structures bring people, some people together in a room. The very, very few bring so many people from so many different walks of life because there are obviously cultural backgrounds to a lot of things. You know, the if we're to be honest, the opera particularly, but it probably has a it's probably not a perfect reflection of the the the city in which it's had opera is taken.

SPEAKER_04

Other cultural artifacts are available.

SPEAKER_05

However, and and obviously sport is not perfect in this not entirely representative, but it's probably as good as we got where you can and you do every week. You literally will have somewhere in the stadium, you will have a child who might be, they might be young, so it's a child, black, they speak a certain language as their first as a mother tongue, they are from a certain socioeconomic background, their dad does a certain job, they go to a certain school, and they will be sat next to somebody who could be in that context white, it could be m different genders. Again, we're not brilliant on gender being equal in representation on the terraces, but you do get a lot of women you know Katie, you come here, but uh completely socioeconomic background, they do a completely different job. So said kid's dad, they completely different walks of life. In no other scenario would these two people even cross the street because they live in different neighborhoods in the stadium. They A sit next to each other, they B talk, and C, they're on a complete level because that kid has got just as good a view and just as bigger opinion on that offside decision as the the guy next to him. So it's a great equaliser to do all that, and then to really mix it up one more time, and this is a particularly important when it comes to the climate thing, you've got the emotion, so you've got that hook, that connection, and and my I'm a Bristol City fan, I'm Bristodian, as you said, Casey. My my brother, for all his sins, was born in South London and as a Crystal Palace fan. And last year or uh yeah, last year they won the FA Cup. And I remember when I when he and I texting him and some of his mates who I know when they won it, and I was sort of expecting them to be sending videos and photos of them uh you know, punching the air, celebrating, going wild, limbs, as they say, everywhere. Actually, it wasn't. All of them were just pictures of them crying, the grown men bawling their eyes out, and that is the emotion which I think some of us actually need to understand the problem, bring people, bring bringing together to try and have a solution, but also then motivate them to do to do something about it. Now, we we know probably not perfected how we capture that into a perfect output of great environmental sustainability. And hey, sport has a lot of ills with environmental sustainability as well, but the ingredients are there, yeah. I mean, hence why yourself, Katie, and and and others um who who we both know spend a lot of time trying to trying to harness that because the opportunity is is massive.

SPEAKER_02

And I would say it goes beyond that as well. I mean, you that's just a beautiful summary of it, but I think it goes beyond that. You've also got a sense of pride that especially if you look at the championship clubs and the lower leagues, there's a real sense of pride in community. And so, you know, your club is and and actually, even when we went up to Anfield recently, up to Liverpool, and we were interviewing um an 81-year-old and his son who have, you know, been with Liverpool since the beginning of time. They brought out all these old paraphernalia, these the program from the first game they ever went to. And they talked about the pride that, you know, that Shankly, Bill Shankly, when he came to Liverpool and created that, you know, made the club what it is today, instilled in Liverpool as a city. And so that sense of pride in local community is a perfect way to do this because you want to look after it, you want to make sure it's clean, it's green, it's a place where people are happy. And you see this from the work that a lot of the foundations do, a lot of the club charities, because they work in the community, they do incredible food bank collections, um, they raise money during COVID, they they delivered food to local people who needed it. All of that comes from this pride and local community. So I'm totally with you. I mean, the other side of it, the more kind of bland side of it, is that sports sits at the centre of so many supply chains and influence. So, you know, they buy loads in, the kit they buy is there's so much kit. And in fact, I again shower out Bristol City here because they use O'Neill's, which is based in Ireland. They create the kit there. The only thing they buy in is the yarn, it's not shipped across the world. It's a much more responsible creation. And so they have an influence in that way as well. How do we do Stuart?

SPEAKER_05

And and sorry to to one other level that we sometimes touch upon, but probably possibly don't talk quite enough, is this potential for sport or negotiations? Because there is, as everybody knows, there's in every stadium, there's a few boxes or rooms where a load of corporates get together. Sometimes for entertainment, sometimes for it's whatever. The great thing about sport, again, because it's that unifying thing, what you tend to get is very different industries in the same room. So if you go, if you work in aerospace, you probably go to conferences with other aerospace companies. If you work in, you know, I'm trying to think of an example of an industry. You're a gardener, you might go to some gardening groups, whatever. Football and rugby and cricket clubs, etc., tend to bring in whoever happens to be in the area and a fan have a bit of money and wants to use entertainment sometimes just themselves. Now, the reason that's got a great deal of potential is the climate crisis is one of those that it needs solutions from a lot of different areas. We need to stitch together technical, engineering, creativity, da-da-da-da-da-da. Um obviously press and media. And actually, a lot of stadiums have all those people in the same restaurant and room and networking at the same time in a way that they wouldn't in any of their other conferences and businesses, the summits that they go to. Probably something if I'm truthful that we, and and I we here haven't really done enough yet to to to exploit that potentially either. We we do a little bit, we do um have uh you know, we have sponsors and guests that we know who are good in a space, and sometimes we hear somebody else talking and I go, You need to speak to such and such a person, but we could probably be a little bit more front-fit about it.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I think really, Pete, what we should do is we should actually create simulators in the boxes so that then when these corporates and guests and sponsors come in, we just basically create what the world is going to be like for them in like 50 years' time. So we have a vision.

SPEAKER_04

They'll be in bunkers.

SPEAKER_05

They'll be in their bunkers.

SPEAKER_04

Here's you in your bunker. It won't be so different for them. I think that I wish I loved sport. I think I don't agree with every I absolutely agree with everything Peter's saying. I think things like sport and music and religion are really, really important for getting people together, across like cross-pollinating people across socioeconomic backgrounds and gender backgrounds, all the rest of it. And I we we really do need everything. So I'm all for it. I just wish I was interested in sport. And I have tried. I think it's obviously better to like sport, and it's better to be religious. You get a better life. Do you know what I mean? You know, better it's better software for your head if you are into sport or into religion. Some people are into both, but they must be happy. They've got this sort of perpetual battle between good and evil. Do you know what I mean? Their team, all the rest, all of those things are obviously brilliant.

SPEAKER_05

It depends how much you how much you fear your wrath and how good your team is on the pitch, I guess. I mean, they might be having a really miserable time of it if they're about to go down rather than up in both in either a uh heaven and hell sense or in a divisional relegation promotion sense. But no, look, hey, we sure completely agree.

SPEAKER_02

I also think actually my my care for climate comes from mostly an entirely selfish place. I'd quite like to have a good life and a good life for my kids. So I don't even think we have to be selfless to care about the environment.

SPEAKER_05

Well, no, but but we need to convince we need to explain to people why it is relevant to them. And I think we probably there is a fair percentage of people that think they will get away with this. They they will get away with it. They they might not get away with the immediate things of litter in the street, sort of a waste and literal problem. But climate change, it feels so far removed.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I they can count forward and they think I'll I'll be alright.

SPEAKER_05

In Britain, I'll be alright anyway. Chap over there living on a low-level island in the South Pacific, he might not be, but I don't know. I can I've got enough to think about without worrying about that that dude. But uh but you're right, it it does affect us, it does affect sport. I mean, we've discussed this case, haven't we? It's it's really starting in the UK to affect sporting fishers at every single level, from from elite to semi-professional to amateur.

SPEAKER_02

There are well, I I think it goes beyond that as well, beyond sport. I mean, uh Stuart, I did you did you go to the national emergency briefing they held at Westminster?

SPEAKER_04

No, I didn't. I was invited, tried to I had a gig in the middle of it. I done a climate comedy gig in the middle of it, and I was like, I can't go in. But I've seen I've seen bits of it, and I do really support what they're trying to do. I think that's a really, really positive effort. And I think you could, I'm pretty sure you I don't know if it's publicly available that you can still watch the actual briefing. I think that's from anybriefing.co.uk is where people find that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, or just Google National Emergency Briefing up and it's all there. But I think to your point about you have to, you have to scare people because to your point, Pete, even those people in bunkers it's going to impact. They need food. And you know, there was a big talk around food security there that I didn't I was not aware of how yeah, how impacted things already were when it came to food security and the projections were thought in the next 10 years around food security.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

But I think there is that case, but I also think going back to how we've done in justifying sport, I think the last thing I'd add is that as fans, we are used to feeling really down and out about a team and then that turning around and being able to rally behind it.

SPEAKER_04

That's a really good point. I think people need narratives, and I think that's I'm really interested in like we need everything. You know, we we don't need what do they call it, we don't need a silver bullet to solve the climate. We need silver buckshot. We need loads and loads and loads of solutions. And anything that motivates people to get out and be in communities and have a conversation about it, I think is really, really important. So whether that's football or religion or music or cultural events or the high street, you know, there isn't really a high street anymore because everything, it's either a high street has died or it's been mollified where it's now kind of private space that no one belongs to and you can get moved on by someone who's dressed. Or maybe not so that's clear. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so there's very like the the the uh what's it called? There's no kind of town hall anymore. There's no, you know, the public space, so much of it is online. So I think that does underline why it's so important that people get together in communal spaces. And obviously, sport is brilliant for doing that.

SPEAKER_02

And please put in the chat if you would like Stuart to join us to see Bristol City move out of 11th and his playoff position next season.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, that's not gonna happen, but I do support you, and I'm happy to put both flags out of the windows of my car.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Now I've got a little intersection, um, which is our weekly or episodic fun quiz time. Are you ready? Yeah, for the both of you. Normally, and Lawrence will be breathing a sigh of relief. Normally, it's a Lawrence versus somebody who knows something about Answer Stone. This week it's focusing on Ashton Gate.

SPEAKER_04

But still, I feel like maybe at a slight disadvantage given I didn't know what the Ashton quarter was, and I still don't know if I'm saying that right. But yeah, fire away and I'll do my best.

SPEAKER_02

Are you ready? Pete, are you ready for this?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So, question one title local food. Over the half of the concession food at Ashton Gate, and I have said this already, actually, just test your listening skills, comes from within how many miles of the stadium? Is it A, 50 miles, B, 12 miles, or C, 21 miles?

SPEAKER_04

Uh, I think 12 miles would be what you'd want to show off about. So lateral thinking-wise, I'm gonna say 12. It'd be quite depressing as a question if you said, or within one mile, I meant, no, it is only 12.

SPEAKER_02

That is an excellent conclusion. Uh Pete, would you like to confirm?

SPEAKER_05

It is within 12 miles, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

What is your can I ask you what your favourite local produce is that you've purchased for the stadium? Are you not allowed to express preference?

SPEAKER_05

I'm sure I'm allowed to express preference. I'm a bit of a traditionalist West Country boy, so it is I am vegetarian. I um but I do eat cheese. Uh so I have the cheese and onion pasty and I have Thatcher Cider. Both come with from within 12.

SPEAKER_04

I love that. I'm vegetarian. I do eat cheese, so don't write in.

SPEAKER_05

Well, I just have to be honest that there are there are plant-based options available as well. Lovely.

SPEAKER_02

Question two the match day travel. How many people are travelling to Ashton Gate for a sporting event when it is at full capacity? Is it A 23,552? Is it B 26,431? Or is it C 27,236?

SPEAKER_04

I'm going D enough to snarl up Red Point Climbing Centre. Make it very difficult to park around there.

SPEAKER_02

Why do you park at Red Point when you you climb now?

SPEAKER_04

What I have done in the past is that I mean, I was trying to think of somewhere along that lane. I also use that Sainspray's from time to time.

SPEAKER_02

Just to check. It is just to authenticate his Bristol knowledge. So you've gone for D, great, which doesn't exist. So would you like to choose A, B, or C?

SPEAKER_04

Sure, A.

unknown

A.

SPEAKER_02

So we've got to be.

SPEAKER_04

If I'll be honest, I don't really have a head for numbers, so I wasn't really listening that hard. But I feel the last one wasn't A, so this one might be A.

SPEAKER_02

Pete, would you like to clarify?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So it is 26,431. And, you know, as we know, Pete, because you were grilled recently by some local grassroots female players and girls that I coach from Bristol Ladies Union about your fan travel plans. You do do a lot to help fans travel to a stadium without polluting up the air, don't you?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean, look, again, let's not kill ourselves, there are still a lot of people coming a lot of cars to a sporting event, as Stuart's mentioned, and most of them want to try and get on the same bit of time out right outside.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, just do it queuing for Red Point Climbing Centre.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Should have used it plus. But no, we we try to reduce it where we can. It is a lot of people, and they're also coming at very defined, very small windows at all.

SPEAKER_02

You are very modest.

SPEAKER_05

We go back to Stuart's point about the um we we um we get rated by the EFL. Well, I'll I'll blow it I'll go then. We get rated by the league twice a year on our fan travel. I think for about the last four seasons we got twice a year, so about eight or ten or eight last reviews all come out of ten out of ten for tram travel, and we've won some national awards for fan travel. We we do that mostly through what largely we use um subsidized just bus service, which offers return travel for as little as one pound, plus concessionary rates, which are free. Lots of work on walking, cycling, uh cycle repair work.

SPEAKER_02

What does that look like? What does work on walking look like?

SPEAKER_05

Well, yeah, I'm glad you asked. Um basically we've we've uh quite simple things, we've um improved signage up at uh local railway stations and along the routes, and we've also got a uh walking map, which my colleague Celia designed a couple of years ago, which points up um points of interest between here and the city centre and the and the public transport hubs.

SPEAKER_02

So does Red Point Climbing Centre feature on that?

SPEAKER_05

You'd go past it, would us on the city? Hey, listen, Red Point was arbitrary. I was just proving that I knew where Ashton Gate was. Um so yeah, and also sponsored by Red Point this week. And and also rail, of course, rail for fans of Portland, quite a few fans don't mind a beer at games. Most games now have additional rail services on from our local Parson Street railway stations. Yeah, it's it's a big it's a big impact area. There's one for you, Stuart. I don't believe if it's in the quiz later on, but fan travel for most um sports clubs will be by far and away the biggest impact uh in terms of it is between 65 and 81%, isn't it? Yeah, it obviously depends on different stadiums, different cities, what your transport solutions are in in in that uh vicinity. But yeah, it's it's it's a massive thing. It's probably not under our direct control, but it doesn't mean that we have no influence on it whatsoever. So we um we've certainly been very keen. And and again, it's a one of these things, if I'm honest, it's a co benefit because it also just helps the fans, it makes them actually better if they can actually get to and from again. Without all having to squabble 20, you know, 10,000 cars trying to park in one bit of a tarnac.

SPEAKER_02

I also come along and sometimes cycle over there just to get a free bike service. That's mostly why I've been recently. No reflection on our performance currently in the league.

SPEAKER_05

But again, going back to Stuart's point earlier on, it's even within that small little thing of fan travel, it's about pulling on lots of different levers to try and um to bring the overall um modal share away from cars.

SPEAKER_02

So, question three resource management. That is exciting. Ashton Gate has also teamed up with HSG to upgrade the stadium with its Eureco system, a water-saving bathroom innovation. How many litres of water will this upgrade with the will this upgrade say every single year? Shall I put this in something other than numbers, Stuart?

SPEAKER_04

Can we do three multiple choice questions about comedy after this? Were they funny? Like I really I really opened up about my lack of experience and knowledge about uh football generally and Ashton Gate in particular. And I I think although I am deeply interested in the climate crisis and sustainability, trying to estimate the amount of water saved by the new Eureko system in the urinals at Ashton Gate may be beyond me. But go ahead, Katie, hit me with some options.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing, that's what I hoped you'd say. Is it A? Five million litres. I tell you what, you're lucky. Normally we do the quizzes in a variety of different units of measurement. Sometimes we do it in the number of cars. Occasionally, we've talked about the number of mere cats. So you're lucky today that it's in units that you might be.

SPEAKER_05

How many mere cats do we save by changing the urinal?

SPEAKER_02

So A, five million litres of water, B, 10 million litres of water, or C 18 million litres of water. Use your logic to figure out which one it's.

SPEAKER_04

I'm going C 18 million litres of water. Get her! And how many mere cats can that quench the first of how many mere cats in a day? C 18 million mere cats.

SPEAKER_02

Or how many beef burgers does that make. In fact, how many pairs of jeans does that make? Because I heard recently that it takes 70 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, that sounds about it. I wouldn't be surprised. Despite your obvious confusion, how hell the hell am I gonna understand that? If I'm completely honest, the uh when they came to us and said, did the modelling and said this is what we're gonna say, it was also I was like, what? That can't be right. We we can't use 18 million litres of water a year already, can we? Surely not. Hell yes. A lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Is it also urinals, isn't it? Just because they're flush.

SPEAKER_05

And this is it, it's just the gentle runos. Hey, look, we still have a lot of water on uh on the pitches. Um so stadiums are very thirsty beasts, pitches are very thirsty, and um there are a lot of across stadium across the UK, there will be an awful lot of toilets and being used awfully few times a week, but still flush very, very regularly. And for sure. It's it's pretty staggering, isn't it? So again, it it shows straight away um not to worry about our specific savings so much, but you get some idea of collectively just how much sport in itself has.

SPEAKER_04

And this I think there's a wider challenge here as well. Like there are things like even in people's homes where you you know you think to yourself, oh, should I have a shower, should I have a bath, which one's best for the climate? And the answer is fix your leaky toilet that's actually just streaming multiple bathtubs of water a day. But the challenge of climate communication en masse is how do we say to people, we need to educate people that look, this is an interesting thing that may benefit you to find out, rather than wagging our finger and go, no, you mustn't drive, you mustn't do this, you mustn't do that, and kind of make people feel like they should have less.

SPEAKER_02

I totally agree. I mean, what you said at the beginning, I think really we should almost play at every single opener of the podcast because you've essentially summed up what we fundamentally believe around climate and what will shift the conversation and what will shift what's actually happening, which is a removal away from the negative associations, that feeling of horrible guilt that you have whenever anyone talks about climate, what asks you if you'd like to measure your carbon footprint uh to a place where actually just make things better. Just do something that makes things better.

SPEAKER_04

Exactly. Just don't be don't be afraid to find out more of it. I think the the two biggest hurdles are we feel, yes, we feel like it's frightening and complicated and ostensibly a long way away, but we also feel implicated. And I think that hurdle of feeling implicated means that people don't try and take it head on because it's so there's a cost of living crisis, there's a war in Iran, there's so many other things to worry about. But you also, it's just this should be like a positive way of doing things more efficiently, getting more for your money. I mean, get a thermal efficiency survey of your house. You can do that free off the council in Bristol. Some legend comes around your house with a thermal heat gun and tells you where all your drafts and all your nooks and crannies are, and you can seal them up with a bit of sealant that you can probably get from one of the DIY shops that you I wouldn't recommend going to on a match day.

SPEAKER_02

Unless you want to go to North Bristol and rovers aren't playing. Uh that I think that's sure. Unless you are someone who actively lobbied against the subsidies to support renewables, you should remove all of your guilt around climate, shouldn't you?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, 100%. There are listen, it's all about the levers that the individual has. We do need individual action, but the biggest individual action we can all take is to talk about it and stop it being invisible. We have to talk about it all the time and feel good talking about it and start conversations about it. Conversations not like the ones I have with my wife, who frequently puts her head on the table in a kind of this again kind of way, which is absolutely reasonable under the circumstances. It just someone will ask me about climate at a dinner party, and she'll go, oh God, and literally make herself scarce. And I'll be like, Yeah, I like the world's resources. Um, so you know, you you need to not talk about it in such a way that people feel like it's awful and moribund and telling people off and scolding them. You have to just go, what are you interested in? And if someone is interested in sport, then yes, I will go on a podcast and talk to people about sport, despite my lack of interest, because I'm trying to connect with you and what you think.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing. So to wrap up then, question one, Stuart, can fit all save the world?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, as part of a suite of solutions. I mean, that's that's I and I I I do I do I would suggest that there are other cultural things available other than opera as well. So if you're very sport focused, it may be that there's loads of other things like theatre and dance and comedy and music and all sorts of other things that you could get into which could assist you in your uh football-based world-saving endeavours.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing. And we would very much appreciate uh Stuart if you could share where else people can access your stand-up, your for sure.

SPEAKER_04

You can go to climatecomedian.com for everything you need. Go to climatecomed.com. I'm gonna be touring in Bristol. I'm not allowed to tell you the date yet, but it's looking very like I'm gonna be including Bristol Old Vic on my autumn tour of my new climate comedy show, which is going to Netflix is a joke festival in LA in a couple of well, in a in a month or two. I'm gonna be doing some of it out there. So then I'm taking it to Edinburgh and uh then I'm taking it on tour all around the country, and I shall be driving there alone in my electric vehicle because there's very, very few tiny little things I can make. There's few uh accommodations I can make when you're touring alone. But also the other thing that I do is I talk to businesses about climate for sustainability events and things like that. So if you uh if you would like to know more about that, then you can add me, Stuart Goldsmith, on LinkedIn, but only if you're a decision maker, let's not waste each other's time.

SPEAKER_02

Amazing. Pete and Stuart, thank you so much for joining us. It was just a really fun, entertaining episode. I'm so glad, Stuart, that we will be seeing you in the Dolman stand next season.

SPEAKER_04

Yes, I'll be there if I can find it.

SPEAKER_05

We'll come and drag you down, mate. Don't you worry, we'll have a seat with your name on it.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for joining us on the Pledgeball podcast. Before you go, it's time to turn your passion into action. Make a nature-friendly pledge for your team today at pledgeball.org. You can join the thousands of fans who are already making a difference and helping to protect where we play. Also, with each pledge, you'll be automatically entered into the draw to win a ticket to the prestigious FSA Awards at the end of the season. So that's pledgeball.org. Go on, get involved.