Pierateers join the call for new Wigan football pies!

You don't need us to tell you we know a thing or two about football pies! If you've even glanced at our pie blog you're bound to have seen mention of our football pie video with BBC Sport (at the home of our top rated football pie, Morecambe FC) or our football pie article with Buzzfeed or our Pieremiership table, detailing all the football pies we've eaten in-ground! We've even been football pie experts on BBC One hit show "Rip Off Britain"!

So it will come as little surprise that we were intrigued to find out about a pie-tition that's circulating online calling for the DW Stadium, home of Wigan FC and Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club, to stock local, Wigan based pies! The e-petition, which started a few days ago, has already seen dozens of people sign up to protest that - despite noting "there is nothing wrong with Holland's Pies", the current supplier - the stadium built on pies (though we don't think literally!) should stock local Wigan pies - namely from Galloways.

We've rated almost 600 pies, including a number of football pies

Now it has to be said that this does leave us in a slight quandary, in that we've rated Holland's Pies (during our visit to The Emirates for an Arsenal game) and a Galloways Pie (on the High Street of Wigan) and these are our findings:



However at Pierate we like to try and see the bigger picture. And if there is a local supplier, one which doesn't have the big spending power of one of its larger pie rivals, we want to factor this in. If it's a case of local v wholesale, that's important too. Ultimately it's a tricky one to call - does the more expensive pie that rates better trump the cheaper local supplier? We'll ultimately leave that decision up to the caterers at the DW Stadium, but lend the petition makers our support.

Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni Watch the video on the BBC Sport website

But before we go any further, after slicing through the crisp top pastry of this e-petition we came to find out that it was in fact friend of the blog Mr Martin Tarbuck - of "The Life of Pies" fame - who is behind the "Pie Eaters Protest Group" who set up the petition! Some would argue that man would do anything to get a book plug, but genuinely he has eaten hundreds of pies himself, so if he's recommending Wigan FC go back to their pie-eating routes and source locally, the man has got to be heard!

So, while we'll happily back the man from Wigan who's had a "journey of a lunchtime", we're also here to do our own football pie campaigning - to say no to #PieHighPrices and keep the price of pies low but the quality of pies high when it comes to the Pies of Football!

RAS