Who Ate All the Pies? Not Footballers
You know who doesn’t eat pies? Footballers. Manchester City’s Erling Haaland revealed that he consumes 6,000 calories a day, so I suppose he could slip in a pie or two. But of course, pies are not a superfood, especially if one wishes to have Jack Grealish’s physique (see above), so it’s fair to assume that most modern footballers do not indulge in pies.
Particularly those who did not grow up in the U.K., where pies are a gastro staple. Take Pascal Chimbonda, who made the PFA Team of the Year at right-back during Wigan Athletic’s maiden season in the Premier League. “I cannot stand the pies,” the French international confessed to the Manchester Evening News in 2005. To convert him to the gospel of pie-eating, Galloways Bakers baked him a special pie with his name embedded in the crust. Sadly, Galloways’s strategy did not have its intended effect. Chimbonda requested a transfer on the final day of the 2005/06 season and moved to North London during the close season. French cuisine: one; pies: nil.
One person we can blame for the near absence of pies from footballer diets is former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. After arriving from Japanese side Nagoya Grampus Eight in 1996, Wenger revolutionized the club’s approach to nutrition. Out went pies and chips; in came steamed vegetables, rice and fish. Soon, the rest of the Premier League followed suit. Clubs now employ full-time nutritionists. Players hire personal chefs.
Sadly, this emphasis on proper nutrition means we hear less and less of an old terrace standard. “Who Ate All the Pies?” was a popular football song directed at the more rotund players on the pitch. Such as Sutton United goalkeeper Wayne Shaw, who was famously captured on camera eating a pie during an FA Cup match against Arsenal. Unsurprisingly, Shaw is no Adama Traoré.
“Nobody may ever be able to quantify,” wrote John Rawling in the 14 December 2002 edition of the Guardian, “exactly how many sports fans, and football supporters in particular, yearn for the good old days: a time when a few pints in the local and the mandatory dodgy pie was followed by a happy afternoon of jostling on the terraces, and when the winner was scored by a big lad with a local accent whose girlfriend dated one of your mates.”
Well, in less than 10 days, those good old days are back! (Sans the large bloke with the impenetrable accent.) 26 October is International Pint & Pie Day – a day for celebrating the most traditional of traditional fare served at football grounds across the United Kingdom (a pint and a pie; duh) and for honoring the formation of the Football Association (founded on 26 October 1863), the world’s oldest football governing body.
So, start thinking about how you want to celebrate – maybe an IPA with a spiced lamb pie or perhaps a wheat ale with a fish pie? – and who you want to celebrate with: your favorite loved one, your least favorite loved one, a fellow commuter or maybe just with your beloved football club on the boob tube.
Whatever you decide, 26 October is a day for crumbly pies and sudsy pints. Happy noshing and quaffing!