If you were allowed to plan the catering at your club, what would be on the menu?

The same question was asked of fans of a Premiership Club on a forum recently and some of the responses suprised me a little...

"I wish I could get a cold glass of white wine rather than a warm one.."

"Can the caterers please show fat and salt content of what they're selling"

"Could we have a more health option to contribute towards the five a day ideal"

Should clubs branch out into other foods or just stick to what they know best, nuked pies and warm, flat pints?

Pretty much what's there now: Burgers, pies, sausages, chips etc.

I would add real ale to be served at all grounds. Most don't do it.

But warm, flat pints are never acceptable! Even real ale (if the club do it) should be slightly chilled. I would also consider warm white wine to be unacceptable.

Although to be honest, if there's demand for healthy options, then clubs should supply it, as long as it's not to the exclusion of all the unhealthy stuff that many of us like! Choice is almost always a good thing.

I would have no problem with clubs showing fat and salt content etc. I doubt I'd pay any attention though.


On a related note, you can get a 3 course sit-down meal at Chelmsford City F.C. if you've got the money (CCFC Match Day Meals).

The best football food I've had though is still the bacon double-cheeseburger for £3.30 at Erith & Belvedere F.C. of the Kent League. It is huge and is the best burger I've ever had anywhere.

Never tried food in a ground and don't plan to, it takes up room for beer. Although i did nearly end up with food at the Villa once, nearly all of our bar staff are foreign and i asked for a pint of beer, she came back with a pie and mars bar :unsure: Then she insisted i'd asked for it and tried to make me pay, i just told her to fcuk off and got served by the bloke next to her instead

Just Pies and Bovril :)
Go for a pie (or 2) usually on aways as it's about the only thing I eat on an away day, no time for breakfast like, in the bar by half 7 :lol:

We (RTK) spoke to the club a while back about the ale at Anfield.

It used to be warm cans of Carlsberg poured into a plastic glass and handed over with half of it being froth. "£2.80 please".

One of the lads designs bottles (strange job) and told them they can get plastic bottles that keep ale cold(ish). This after they denied they existed.

The club sourced them and got them in, so we now sell pint sized bottles of Carlsberg that are delivered to the ground a few hours before kick off so they keep cold(ish).

As believe it or not - Anfield doesn't have the power supply to be able to run fridges and ovens at the same time. And by law the food has to be kept at a certain temperature. So the Kop doesn't have any fridges. Great design!

But the day they start selling fruit, wine and declaring salt content is the day we're all sat in the middle tier at Arsenal using a knife and fork.

Scouse pies, balti pies, burgers, lager, bovril, hot chocolate, tea, coffee, crisps. That'll do.

And I didn't check if they still did them this season - but Villa Park do a cracking chips and curry. Used to do a chip, curry barm as well. But no barms last year.

It's very rare that I'll buy either food or drink at football. As a vegetarian, I'm pretty poorly catered for but don't particularly care as I can always find something before/after the game if I'm hungry. That said, the cheese'n'onion pie at Wigan was excellent.

In terms of beer, I can't stand Carlsberg out of a plastic bottle. Crap drink, crap way of drinking it. If there was ale available I'd be interested, but generally I don't like drinking at football.

Dont buy food and rink often. But I quite like what they do sell, just £3 at Luton for a pasty was a disgrace.

Would make water reasonable. When singing all game sometimes I can barely talk when I leave, and I'm not paying £1.50 for water.

Maybe some fruit as well as an option.

I occasionally have a pie in the ground at an away game but mostly don't bother, if I'm hungry I'll get something from a burger van or more often just wait until I can have a proper meal in a pub/back home.

If I was in charge of catering speed of service would be my main concern, so I'd probably keep it simple with pies, pasties and burgers but have options for vegetarians (still pies and burgers but veggie stuff, tofu and that) and for the faggy health-conscious types (maybe those little packs of fruit sold by McDonald's etc.) I would pre-pour vast quantities of whatever flat lager is sold before half time but would also have chilled bottles of ale in the refrigerator (no point in trying to have proper beer on draught, no-one would bother taking care of the pipes etc. and it would just taste like vinegar a la Wetherspoons!)