There was a time when football food meant nothing more to me than a packet of spangles and a sherbet fountain. But then I became a man and put away such childish things. My voice dropped almost as far as my beloved Blades did, and I fell among a bad crowd – those who frequented the pie counter.
That’s my excuse – United plumbed the depths of the old Division 4, and I needed sustenance. I turned to the pie in a time of need, an emotional crutch to get me through 90 barren minutes, a culinary oasis in a desert of frizzy perms, terrace fences and football decay.
Washed down with a weak and tepid Bovril, the 70s pie was a sad affair devoid of any genuine meat with traceable ancestry, and with a crust that could take the enamel off your teeth. I nevertheless consumed with gusto back then, and whatever I now believe I have to concede that the pie has been an amiable travelling companion on my long journey through the Beautiful Game.
Stuffed doormice, no less
Of course spectators have always filled their faces at sporting events. Even Romans at the Coliseum (capacity 50,000, all-seater, good all-round views, no pillars, very few pitch invasions) enjoyed a veritable feast in the interval between fights and are said to have nibbled on the odd doormouse, stuffed with almonds and lemon, as they decided the fate of some poor gladiatorial soul. Sadly, there’s still a few football ground nowadays which could provide a similar fare – and source the main ingredients very locally.
Food in general seems to fascinate the football fanatic. Start any food-related thread on a half-decent website these days and it’s taken up with gusto, with supporters chewing over the culinary vibe with an analytical zeal and complexity way beyond that with which they choose to talk about their team’s performance. On one site “bigging-up” places to eat on the way to away grounds I read the comment: “Also worth trying the oatcake shop near Vale Park, Port Vale – well worth getting relegated for.”
Let’s face it, food, and more specifically the pie, is all pervading in football culture, whether we’re berating the porkiest opposition donkey or watching ITV’s Championship highlights (sponsored by Pukka Pies). A pre-match tour around any ground’s food concourse will reveal hundreds of people with faces a contorted cross between Kenneth Williams and a blow-up doll as they try to suck in cool air to fan the flames of a semi-consumed, molten lava microwaved pie . . . and talk to their mates at the same time.
Even the marketing-savvy David Beckham knew exactly what to say when asked by an English journo in Spain recently what he missed most about England – “pie and mash,” came the reply. In so saying the golden boy was aligning himself with the British game’s credible and, more importantly for DB, fashionable, working-class culture in which the divine pie is eaten, and sometimes worn (I have the stains to prove it), like a badge of honour.
In an age when you can longer stand and watch, no longer light-up a Woodbine or travel home on the tram with your sporting heroes, perhaps the pie is the last bastion of this culture on match day, a sentimental nod to a so-called golden age which many of us continually keep alive but were never alive to see.
When Cambridge United topped the table
In 1998, the authors of the one and only edition of the controversial Colman’s Football Food Guide scoffed 323 pies, 185 hot dogs, 291 burgers and 144 portions of chips in order to find the best football food in the country. Tasters were said to be “well chuffed with the Cornish pasties and bacon butties” at the Abbey Stadium and so the award went to Cambridge United, with Huddersfield and Rochdale second and third respectively.
The guide made grim reading for Premiership clubs, with no representatives in the top 10 and only four featuring in the Top 20 - Manchester United, Coventry, Bolton and West Ham. Interestingly, Chelsea and Tottenham were 79th and 86th respectively out of the 93 venues in the poll, which put Leyton Orient at rock bottom 93rd and the old Wembley Stadium in 89th position.
I say it was a controversial book because the findings were challenged by rival authors of the Football Fans’ Guide, whose own members disagreed with the results. The mere fact that a guide to football pies should cause a Da Vinci Code-style literary handbag fight surely gives further credence to my argument of how reverentially we treat the pie.
Just say no to Jamie
Match-day has been ‘gentrified’ over the years. In terms of personal safety that’s no bad thing. But the soul-less stadia, verbal tannoy diorrhea and altogether more sanitised experience of a Saturday afternoon leaves me fearing the worst for the future of the pie. Surely it’s only a matter of time before Jamie Oliver’s behind the counter at Chelsea foaming at the mouth about nutritional values, waving a pie in one hand and brandishing a pair of pigs nads in the other – pukka!
I have a friend who’s a bit of a cove and during a particularly dull match last season, got to the front of the long and frustratingly slow-moving Bramall Lane food queue, and asked in his grittiest Sean Bean drawl: “I’ll ‘av a warm salad o’ pan-fried pheasant breast wi’ watercress and don’t forget ‘t walnut oil dressin.” Oh how the spotty oik behind the anti-riot, plastic barrier laughed. But is it seriously only a matter of time before the middle-class foodies get their hands on my pies?
The independent watchdog, the Food Commission, has laid into the FA and the Premier League from time to time lambasting their acceptance of sponsorship from the likes of McDonalds, Mars and Walkers Crisps, especially as part of their healthy community initiatives.
Even the Bovril’s not bovine anymore. Despite enough of the product being sold in 1994 to make 90 million mugs of it (apparently enough for every person attending a football league match to have one at the beginning, half-time, another at the end and a last one at home) the boys from the blackstuff switched from beef to a yeast extract in the wake of the BSE crisis in order to counter declining sales.
21st Century Schizoid Pie
If the pie really is the last flag bearer then it’s still flying proudly. Shire Foods, who boast feeding fans at more than 40 football clubs, were allegedly responsible for bringing the product into the 21st Century. A few years ago they scoured the four corners of the globe seeking fresh inspiration for the culinary innovation that was. . . .the chicken balti pie. A flagship pie of which they’ve now sold more than five million. No wonder then, set against the backdrop of increasing child obesity, the Food Commission wants answers to the eternal question of who really ate all the pies.
Another reason perhaps for the pie’s survival of changing fashion and football legislation has been the development of the mutli-faceted ground redevelopments incorporating hotels, restaurants, casinos, laundrettes, nail bars, dog kennels and tattoo parlours. The obvious inference being that you can either share a pie and a pint with your mates or, for that special occasion, eat in corporate and corpulent style with a five-star, four-course feast at the new Chez Warnock eatery.
This physical step forward in football grounds is beginning to bring about a subtle cultural shift recognized recently by none other than Milan's coach Carlo Ancelotti whom, after a visit to Old Trafford, praised the ‘English way’ of getting to the ground early, having a tea and coffee and staying around after the match for a meal. I don’t know the last time Carlo was at Bramall Lane but I can assure him that, even after a victory, there are many fans sitting on buses within 90 seconds of the final whistle being blown.
Carlo claimed the English ground had actually become a place to go and eat; something which didn’t exist in the Italian culture and added that he thought his countrymen could learn a thing or two from the Brits. Again, that’s not my experience of continental football Carlo mi’ old mucker.
Is this the way to bocadillo?
The large, clean and friendly food caravans outside the San Siro boasted an impressive range of paninis and ciabatta with prosciuto, chorizo, local cheeses and roasted pepper and herb fillings. True, we were ripped off inside for a soggy excuse of a matchday programme and a can of ubiquitous Coke, but the before and after football experience was infinitely more enjoyable thanks to a modicum of effort in the Milanese kitchen.
Meanwhile, the many temporary food stands outside Madrid’s Bernabeau are positively seedy, focused as they are on the sale of sunflower and pumpkin seeds and pistachio nuts, all of which are consumed nervously throughout the match, their husks and shells discarded with latin abandonment. The half time whistle was the cue for the multi-tiered rows of fans to adhere to the almost quasi-religious tradition of unpacking little foil packages of meat wrapped in various lumps of bread. I thought the ritualistic scoffing of the bocata or bocadillo (meaning sandwich or snack) was a writer’s stereotype but I was delighted to witness that it wasn’t.
Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz boasted a decent ham sandwich and enough serving staff to give you a manicure and pedicure while you waited. I was, however, alarmed over the countless braziers roasting hot chestnuts immediately outside the turnstiles. Were it to be allowed in the UK I can only imagine the post-match interview as a burned and permanently disfigured Phil Neville explains how his over-exuberant shirt-kissing goal celebration flagged under a hail of hot nuts.
The Beautiful Game Pie
The sales figures seem to suggest the pie is here to stay and long may it do so. But my plea to the catering arms of our great clubs is just to expand the menu a little in order to temper the suffering and boost the bliss of a Saturday afternoon, with something actually worth eating.
That doesn’t mean to say, for instance, that I want to see bowls of Colston Basset Stilton and celery soup (have you nicked my croutons!) at the City Ground or Melton Mowbray game pies at the Walkers Stadium, nor crayfish poached in a court-boullion at Torquay FC. I just crave a few imaginative ingredients, a little flair, style and creativity . . .both on and off the pitch.
