AT LEAST THERE’S CHEESE & ONION

Ah, January. The season of good intention, the month of selfimprovement. This is the time to repent your dietary sins, to renounce that high-fat, artery-clogging lifestyle. Until, oooh, at least February!

And one way of doing so is to cut out the meat. The phrase ‘Meat-free Monday’ will be bandied about plenty in the next few weeks, the one day a week when bloodthirsty carnivores are encouraged to pay attention to their cholesterol levels and go vegetarian for a single meal in seven. And Monday works well for the football fan wanting to eat a little healthier. Because, dear reader, if they’d wanted to go meat-free on a Saturday afternoon or a Tuesday evening, their options would be severely limited.

As a vegetarian of 22 years’ standing – and a football fan for nearly twice as long – I can attest to the less-thanspectacular culinary offerings being made available to us herbivores at most grounds. If we’re lucky, the tea bar will be serving chips, the saving grace of those who’ve taken the veggie pledge.

If we’re unlucky, the only hot food comes in the form of pastry goods filled with some unidentified meat. In such circumstances, only a packet of Walkers cheese and onion – and possibly a not-for-resale multipack chocolate bar being resold – will see us through.

Exasperation

My audible disappointment at the tea-bar counter in such circumstances is invariably followed by one question I’ve been asked a thousand times over those 22 years: ‘Do you eat fish?’

And a thousand times I’ve given the same answer, each time trying so hard not to show my increasing exasperation. I should just get it printed on a T-shirt.

‘No, vegetarians don’t eat fish. You’re thinking of a pescetarian.’ ‘My sister-in-law is a vegetarian and she eats fish.’ ‘She’s not a vegetarian, then.’ ‘Yes, she is.’ ‘Er, no she isn’t. And how come you work in catering and you don’t know the difference?’

And that’s before I even consider why they’re asking whether I’m partial to seafood. It’s not as if they’ve got anything remotely fishy on the menu anyway. Smoked salmon and sea bass are usually conspicuous by their absence at grounds across the country.

There are, of course, a few famous veggie-friendly exceptions that prove the rule. Before they joined the sainted 92, Forest Green became one of the country’s best-known Non-League clubs for almost exclusively non-footballing reasons – namely the New Lawn’s exclusively vegan menus. Indeed, the most enjoyable pre-match sustenance I’ve ever had was served up there, a slap-up feed of great imagination and flair. (A warning to those fancying doing likewise: the posh nosh is only being available to those with tickets in the main stand. The travelling fans on the away terrace have to make do with little more than (veggie) burgers and chips.)

Meanwhile, the last time I was down at The Dripping Pan in Lewes, I gratefully kept the cold out with a veggie haggis, neeps and tatties in a mushroom cream. And I seem to remember that at Eastleigh they serve a paper cone crammed with some fairly transcendental nachos.

Imagination

I can hear the tutting from here, the sneers of traditionalists who believe such dishes have no part to play in the ‘real’ football experience. But why should football necessarily be associated with limited food offerings of variable quality?

Happy tastebuds and an appreciation of the beautiful game aren’t mutually exclusive. And even if culinary imagination is low, can I at least ask those saintly volunteers on duty at tea-bars up and down the country to get the stock levels right?

Nothing warms the cockles – and the stomachs – of vegetarian football fans more than a good cheese and onion pastie (and I had a belter the other week at Oxford City, one that had been allowed proper time to bake in a proper oven).

Unsurprisingly, though, meateaters appreciate a cheese pastie too, meaning they invariably sell out quickly. If a particular item on the menu runs out before half-time, that should give the guardians of the tea-bar a clue. It’s a popular product line that will sell as long as it’s in stock. Just order more in.

After all, try as he might, man cannot live on crisps and chocolate alone.

Nige Tassell’s book – The Bottom Corner: Hope, Glory and Non-League Football – is published by Yellow Jersey Press and is out now in paperback