Forest Green Rovers, the world’s first vegan football club, has beaten the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United to become the first on the planet to launch its own trading card game.

Currently top of the National League, Rovers has created FGR Club Clash, its very own table top trading card contest, featuring all of the club’s players and management, alongside bespoke match cards.

FGR Club Clash gives fans the chance to manage the Gloucestershire-based football club, pitting their favourite players in tactical battles against their friends and family.

Dale Vince, FGR chairman, said: “Top Trumps style card games like this are hugely popular with fans of all ages - and creating our own FGR version is really quite special.

“It’s a beautifully designed, really well thought through, and hugely playable game - we think our fans will love it – and who knows, it could well start a trend.”

Forest Green Rovers has captured the headlines on more than one occasion in recent years. In 2010, FGR announced it was removing red meat from its menu, becoming an all-vegetarian outfit – and then became the world’s first vegan football club in 2015, winning plaudits from Paul McCartney amongst others.

The Cotswolds side’s chairman, Dale Vince, is also the founder of green energy company, Ecotricity, and the club operates an eco-friendly stadium that features its own solar panels, an organic pitch, electric car charging points and what it calls its ‘Mowbot’ – a robot lawnmower.

Dale continued: “Football is a relatively new frontier for these kinds of ideas, but our aim is to change that and bring the environment into the DNA of football more generally - not just FGR.”

Forest Green Rovers will unveil the game at a special event at its home stadium, The New Lawn, at 12.30pm on Thursday, October 27.

It will be available from the club shop from that date, before going on sale from the club website and Atlantic Games in Stroud from Monday 31 October.

Club Clash attempts to recreate the drama of the beautiful game, as each player aims to score more goals than their opponent over the course of two halves.

Goals are scored by using a combination of player cards - which have both defence and attack stats, coach cards - which give you the chance to gain an advantage, and match cards - which can change the result of the game.

Fans can get started by buying a starter pack, which include 50 cards, enough for two players to have a game straight away. They can then add to their collection by purchasing booster packs, which consist of 10 random cards from the entire set.

Launching at the end of October, there are over 80 cards to collect, with fun match cards including ‘Vegan Superpowers’, ‘the Green Devil’ and ‘Total Football’.

A starter pack costs £9.99 with booster packs on sale for £2.65.