Well we can't deny it's been a while, but Friday Pieday is back for a pre-Christmas special! Though perhaps sur-pie-singly it is lacking on the festive Turkey and Mince Pie reviews you may expect at this time of year and instead focusing on pies in the media, as it seems you just can't keep a good pie down... quite literally in the case of our top story!

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Our "Pie in the Sky"

Pie in the sky?! Just watch this space!!!

You may well remember back in British Pie Week 2016, which we extensively covered here on the home of the pie review, that Pierateer Rob pie-oneered "Pie in the Sky" by enjoying a World Scotch Pie Championship winning Scotch Pie from The Kandy Bar Bakery on his flight back from Glasgow to Birmingham. However it appears some pie fans in Wigan have taken things one step further!

As reported on the BBC News website, to celebrate the upcoming World Pie Eating Championships in Wigan some pie fans have only gone and sent a meat and potato pie up into space!!! Attaching the pie to a balloon, it's believed to be the first pie sent into space and there are scientists studying how the pie will react to being so far above the Earth's crust!

Will it freeze in the outer atmosphere? Will it burn up upon re-entry? The pie scientists are hoping to find out soon! You can see a snazzy little video on the BBC website right now!

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Pierateers are pie advisers to the BBC once again

While the full details cannot yet be unveiled as it is still at the idea pitching stage, this week Pierateer Rob was once again advising the BBC on a potential pie-related clip for hit BBC show "Rip Off Britain". You may remember that back in February 2015 Pierateer Rob was filmed by the BBC talking football pies, for an episode of "Rip Off Britain" that aired in April 2015 and has been repeated several times since. This follows our appearance on BBC hit show The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and several BBC Radio ap-pie-rences!


While sadly that episode of Rip Off Britain is no longer available on BBC pie-player, you can still see us on the BBC Sport website talking football pies!

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The Sun's Sports Section covers our PIEremiership!

Turns out it's not just the BBC wanting to get their hands on top pie-fessional advice when it comes to pies! Just a few weeks ago Pierateer Rob was also featured in The Sun newspaper's sports section talking about the best football pies. Featuring just shortly after the BBC announced its annual Price of Football survey, which we covered in our article on the Pies of Football, The Sun contacted us to find out more about football pies and grab a slice of our PIEremiership - where we rate the pies at football grounds up and down the land!

You can find out more about Pierate's Football Pie League and a whole host of other football pie related info right here! This includes the Pierate Highly Recommended pies from Morecambe FC, which rate as our number 1 pies in football.

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If you have a story you think would be good to feature on the web's leading pie review site, send us an email at pierateship@yahoo.co.uk or contact us on Twitter @pierateers Follow @pierateers

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The BBC have once again called upon the Pierateers to find out what makes a great pie! The team from BBC's Rip Off Britain called upon our ex-pie-tise to advise on football pies, following our TV debut on Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and appearing on the BBC Sport website in their video on pies related to the Price of Football Survey.

Pierateer Rob on BBC's Rip Off Britain

Pierateer Rob - who was the chosen pie expert for the show - is seen talking about the quality of British football pies and whether they really are a rip off or not. For the eager pie-d among you, you'll know that the clip on Rip Off Britain this lunchtime was actually the same footage as back in April, but it's clearly a big talking point as it's been shown once again!

In the clip (which can be view on BBC Pie-player for the next month and features us in the pie story from minute 18 to minute 26 and Pierateer Rob specifically in minute 22), Bradford City fan Kevin was questioning the quality and price of the pies at his local football club. Like us, Kevin thinks a half time pie is part and parcel of football culture in Britain. 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 quality and 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? Find out in the episode!

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 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 pie by reading about the 7 Cs of pie rating. However what makes a great football pie?

Here are a few specific pointers for making the perfect football pie:

Firstly, it’s got to be cooked properly. Sadly, in the rush to serve so many customers in such a short space of time, food at football grounds can be undercooked or left sat in a hot locker for far too long, making the pie taste bad or even be pretty much inedible. We have unfortunately fallen foul to a few pies being served to us either undercooked or over baked. Naturally, the rating of such pies is badly affected.

Secondly, the football pie has got to be something you can pick up in your hands and bite into, without it crumbling all over the place. Quite a few football pies can be too soft to pick up or crumble all over the place when bitten into, so a firm but crisp pastry casing is key.

Finally, the consistency of the pie filling has got to be just right. Naturally we want a meat pie to be filled to capacity with nice, tender meaty chunks, but we also expect the viscosity of the gravy or sauce to be well thought through so that it is flavoursome but not too runny, as the last thing you want is gravy down your football shirt!

Morecambe FC won the British Pie Awards in 2012 and 2014!

All this has got to be provided at a reasonable price that leaves the fan going away happy and without a huge dent in the wallet, otherwise it's certainly a rip-off!

In summary, we think there’s nothing better than a warm, hearty pie to get you through half time. But the key thing is that they have got to be top rated pies! Too often the pies are not only overly expensive but are just not up to scratch, either too dry or undercooked. So as well as checking out the price of pies, we’ll be making sure we rate as many as possible on our 7 Cs of pie rating so that you know what pies to purchase and don't get ripped off!

RAS

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Birmingham Pie League to expand the PIEremiership

There's always been a strong link between football and pie. We've highlighted it many a time, including in our "Pies and Football - a match made in heaven" article. We've even created the PIEremiership, to record the half time pies we've eaten at football grounds across the country and the exciting news is that we're expanding it to cover all five West Midlands clubs. With Walsall already covered but rated over 5 years ago (in what was actually Pierateer Rob's second ever pie review!) we've decided to go on a West Midlands Football Pie Tour, with all five grounds in the Birmingham area being covered.

Aston Villa, Birmingham, West Brom and Wolverhampton's football pies have already been put under the spotlight in the past few weeks and Walsall's is still to come this weekend, as we look to find out whose pies hit the back of the net and which ones will be paying the penalty! You've been able to follow our progress on our twitter and reports will be added to an article I'll be writing about the Birmingham Football Pie League for Buzzfeed in the coming few weeks!

But without us even realising, Channel 5's "Football League Tonight" programme got in there early and spotted us pie rating at the Wolves v Huddersfield game on Saturday, featuring our photo on their football highlights show! Thanks to Steve Bartley and Thom Bartley for pointing it out to us on Twitter!

Football on 5 showed our half-eaten pie on Channel 5!

Check out the football pies we've rated so far in our PIEremiership!

Pierateers filming with BBC Sport

And speaking of football pies, you may well have seen that Pierateer Rob was called upon by BBC One hit show "Rip Off Britain" to give his expert pie opinion recently on football pies. You can find out more about what he said by visiting our Rip Off Britain: Football Pies article.

And if you want to find out more about the match winning pies they sell at Morecambe FC, currently top of our PIEremiership, you can see both Head Chef Graham and ourselves in a video on the BBC Sport website talking football pies!

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Pierate become pie advisers to BBC Sport

Unsurpiesingly our headlines this week are dominated by the BBC's Price of Football study, in which we featured. Having already spoken on BBC Local Radio and appeared with our homemade Crocodile Pie on the Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice, it was great to be called upon by BBC Sport in the last few weeks as their pie advisers for the BBC Price of Football Survey. As reported in last week's Pieday Friday, having travelled up to Morecambe FC last week for filming with BBC Sport's news presenter Azi Farni, we were delighted to make the cut on the BBC's "What makes the perfect football pie?" video in this year's study.

BBC Sport presenter Azi Farni chatting to Morecambe FC chef Graham

It was great to be involved in the filming and grab the opPIEtunity of eating a few more pies from Morecambe FC’s award winning pie kitchen while we were there, including their new Pork, Irn Bru and Chilli pie! While it certainly is a unique pie flavour, it rated quite well and complements the range of pies on offer at the Globe Arena.

For those not familiar, you can read our review of their meat pies from our VIP trip back in January 2014, alongside our review of their Apple pie which we ate at half-time. We rated it very highly, especially for a dessert pie, but little did we know the apple pie would go on to win best pie at the British Pie Awards 2014, where we judged.


Further to the appearance in the "What makes the perfect football pie?" video, we also attended the BBC Radio 5 Live debate on the survey, at which we met Frank Lampard and were very grateful to Football Focus presenter Dan Walker for spending a couple of minutes telling us what he makes of the half time pie!

As you can imagine, we are delighted to have finally made it as pie experts, just under 5 years since we began sailing the 7 Cs in search of the perfect pie!

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If you have a story you think would be good to feature in next week's Pieday Friday, send us an email at pierateship@yahoo.co.uk or contact us on Twitter @pierateers Follow @pierateers

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