As the BBC Price of Football Survey launched again this year we gave our opinion on BBC Radio 5 Live, sharing our expertise on the many pies we've rated and our number one football pie - from Morecambe FC.

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

When you think football, you think half time pie. What better during those cold, winter evenings to warm the heart, as well as the hands, during the half time interval as you watch your local team? But is that actually what people do? Or has the price of football pies put off the regular football fan? Do the caterers even have enough pies to go round? And if fans do buy a pie, is it piefection or are football fans being held to ransom?

We were interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live as part of their discussion on the BBC Price of Football survey, particularly focusing on the quality of pies being provided at grounds and questioning why we are paying so much for often quite average pies, at a time when the top clubs in England are getting millions of pounds in additional TV revenue!

In particular was the surprise that pie prices in the Premier League have gone up 1.82% in the last year, as highlighted in the Price of Football stats article. While some of this increased is put down to the clubs selling more artisan and high quality pies - something we support - there are a number of grounds who sell the same pies as each other but at quite significant differences in price!




You may remember last year we joined BBC Sport's Azi Farni at Morecambe FC, who make some of the best pies rated on Pierate (let alone football grounds) to discuss what makes the perfect football pie! Watch us featuring in the BBC Price of Football video here.

We at www.pierate.co.uk will readily admit we are first and foremost a pie rating website, rather than specifically a football pie rating website, but we’re looking to delve further into the provision of football pies as we develop our Pieremiership of football’s best half time pies.

We've rated over 500 pies, including a growing number of football pies

But while we realise we haven’t eaten anywhere near enough pies in different football grounds yet – despite having over 500 pies rated in our Pie Rankings from many of the regular football pie manufacturers like Pukka Pies, Holland’s Pies and Peter’s Pies – we have always been a fan of eating a golden pastry product in the football stadiums we’ve visited. And in our minds what’s more important than simply the price of the pie is how the pie rates. Is it a soggy disappointment, overly dry or lacking in content or does it meet the 7 criteria we Pierateers look for in a pie?

In our view, it’s all about a great tasting pie – filling and pastry - which is value for money. You can find out more about what makes a great rated football pie by reading our article on the Pies of Football from last year.

RAS

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Pierate in attendance at the BBC Radio 5 Live Price of Football Debate

With a selection of Football Club directors, an ex-player in Kevin Kilbane and current one in Frank Lampard, some passionate fans and Pierateer Rob in attendance, BBC Radio 5 Live hosted a debate on the Price of Football Survey in Etihad Stadium, Manchester. While the main debate focused on the price of the actual match day ticket, there were a few brief mentions of pies and a chance for Pierateer Rob to give his view (as a Wycombe Wanderers fan) on the cost of a ticket, rather than the price of pies.

Pierateer RAS and fellow football pie fan Dan Walker

It was also an opportunity for Rob to meet Kieran Maguire who is an expert in Football Finances and a keen supporter and pie eater at Brighton and Hove Albion FC. He rates Brighton’s pies – supplied by British Pie Awards winners Piglets Pantry – as the best in football, so we will definitely have to take up their kind offer of going to rate their pies sometime soon! We hope to get Kieran’s opinions on the price of football pies in the near future too!

However, alongside meeting Frank Lampard and Danny Wilson (Sales Director at Manchester City), the pielight of the trip was talking football pies with presenter Dan Walker after the show.

Pierateer RAS joined guests at the Etihad Stadium

Dan, for the few who don’t know, is presenter on BBC’s Football Focus and is a big fan of the half time pie. Like us, he sees eating a half time pie as part of the football match day package. He specifically recommended the pie at Kidderminster, which does come with quite a hefty price tag in the latest BBC Price of Football Survey as the most expensive pie in football (though Harriers fans defend this tag by arguing it is more of a meal than just a pie). Unfortunately the half time snack at Kidderminster doesn’t meet our strict Pierate requirements for a pie, as it is really a potato bake and has no pastry.

He also highlighted the vegetarian pies at Forest Green Rovers as ones to try – which I know for a fact is already on the pie hit list of Pierateer SJL. However only in exceptional circumstances would Dan be willing to pay £4 or more for a match day pie, agreeing with us that it is more the quality of the pie that is important, rather than the price per se.

Dan joins celebrities such as David Beckham and Barack Obama as celebrities who love pie!

You can find out what we believe makes the piefect football pie in our article “The Pies of Football”, which looks at the results of the BBC Price of Football survey and also includes our review of the new Pork, Irn Bru and Chilli pie at Morecambe FC!

RAS

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It seems people love pies! And it seems people love our pie reviews on www.pierate.co.uk! So today we are delighted to be celebrating our 150,000th page view with a special post highlighting our top pie articles so far and an appearance on BBC Local Radio's "Mark Forrest Show"!

November 2009 – The Pierate Ship sets sail
January 2012 – We celebrated 10,000 pageviews
July 2012 – We reached 15,000 pageviews
March 2013 – We landed on 25,000 pageviews
October 2013 – We hit 50,000 pageviews
February 2014 – We were delighted to make 100,000 pageviews
May 2014 – We are amazed to reach 150,000 pageviews


But wait – there’s more! As it happened, one of the big topics on the BBC Local Radio summary show – the “Mark Forrest Show” – was pies and unusual pie fillings! So no sur-pies that they called on the pie experts the Pierateers and we had a 10 minute conversation with Mark. It was very flattening to hear Mark say "The strength and depth of this blog is something to inspire" and "It's an amazing blog." While sadly the recording was only online for one week, you can read some of the articles we referred to below.



And without further ado, here are our top 5 articles from our first 150,000 pageviews:

1) Best Pies in London Restaurants – 1,585
2) Best Pie in London – 1,516
3) Is it a pie? McDonalds under the knife – 1,426
4) Pierate in the Urban Dictionary - 679
5) What Makes The Best Scotch Pie? - 525

Plus with over 8,000 pageviews already, it’s no surprise our Pierate Pie Rankings page is the most visited page on Pierate!

Thanks once again to all the pie fans out there who make writing all these pie reviews such a PIEleasure! Enjoy!

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