Peters and Lee, Strawberries and Cream, Katie Price and anyone….Classic partnerships that all the family know and love. For us blokes we could throw in the likes of Pamela and Anderson or Natalia and Velez (what do you mean who??? HER!)…but there is one partnership that rises above all others. Football and pies. Let’s face it, if it wasn’t for those two, we wouldn’t be able to sing “Who ate all the pies” to any visiting keeper. We wouldn’t have had the marvellous book 92 Pies by occasional Lewes FC visitor Tom Dickinson and every weekend we would go hungry at the game.
In celebration of National Pie Week, Lewes were planning on launching their own range of RookPies at the game against Carshalton Athletic. Take your pick from Steak and Harveys (of course, Harveys), Chicken and Leek, Chicken Tikka or a special vegetarian Homity variety. All served by some fans in their finest black and red striped outfits wandering amongst the good and the great of the Dripping Pan. Ideas formulate quickly and the club are already looking at ways to use social media for pie consumption. Tweet @rookpies with your name and location #chickenandleek and within minutes a steaming hot pastry delight can be yours.
Of course the game against Carshalton Athletic wasn’t all about the pies. Three points were definitely more in demand than a bite of crisp pasty and beer marinated steak. The Rooks were in desperate need of 3 points. The last league win had come ten games ago, and it had been almost four months since the Dripping Pan audience had seen three points. We had come close, don’t get me wrong. Last minute equalisers conceded to Kingstonian and Horsham had cost us four points, which would have still seen us in the mix for the playoffs. But we all know that anyone on their day can beat anyone else, and so everyone was still looking up the table rather than down.
Lewes 1 Carshalton Athletic 0 – The Dripping Pan – Saturday 10th March 2012
Some days the elements combine to bring back a love for football. We’ve had a week of financial woes (Rangers, Portsmouth and Port Vale), Football authority cock-ups (The FA sending letters out to managers telling them to keep their opinions to themselves) and of course club owners who simply live in a very different world to the rest of us (step forward Mr Abramovich). All reasons to simply shake your head and start watching re-runs of Rising Damp on ITV4 at 3pm on a Saturday. But when the sun comes out, the beer is cold, the warm pies are literally handed to you on a plate and your team finally wins a game you want that moment to last forever. Well today was one of those days.
It had been all go at the ground prior to the game as ClubSec Kev had been trying to register our new midfieler Peter Gregory (ex-Portsmouth and signed from Eastbourne Borough) in time for the kick off. Now in the modern age you would expect this to be done via MSN or an iPhone app perhaps? Surely it wasn’t as antiquated as email attachments? Oh no – we are talking about state of the art FAX here. Yep – it’s all the rage apparently since replacing Telex last season as the way football clubs have to communicate with the authorities. With the read receipt confirming the fax had been received in the bowels of the FA, our new mdifielder took his place on the wipe/whiteboard simply as “Peter”…you see he was signed so late that there wasn’t time to give him a nickname. Perhaps by next Saturday he may get one (Greggers perhaps?).
Fortunately the goal distracted the pie queue so I was able to sneak my order in. Chicken and Leek. Was it worth the wait? Too bloody right it was. I even had to put my Harvey’s down to eat it. It takes something special for a man to put his beer down I can tell you. Within thirty minutes the pies were all gone. It had been a total success, although there were mutterings from certain northern members of the crowd about the lack of gravy but what do they know about cuisine anyway. Tripe, dripping, brawn? I rest my case.
The rest of the first half saw a positive Lewes side push forward when they could. Nanetti, restored to the starting XI saw a lot of the ball, but on a number of occasions after beating his man he took it a step too far when a pass would have been the best option, although in his defence he was fouled time and time again yet nothing was given by a referee who seemed to forget some of the basics of the game such as timekeeping.
Lewes nearly had a second when Greggors (see I have started the official renaming process already) sent a corner in that evaded everyone and smacked against the inside of the far post. But it was an assured team performance that finished the half, much to the annoyance of the Carshalton fans who were making their feelings very clear about what they thought of their owner/manager.
The final minutes were nervous for obvious reasons. “Remember Kingstonian and Horsham” came the cry from the back of the terrace. Five minutes of injury time were somehow crafted by the referee, who then played a further two minutes just for good measure before ending the game and the wave of relief swept around the ground like the rooks who came down from their perches to reclaim their spot on the pitch.
