FA Cup: Meat pie stunt comes back to bite goalie

An English soccer player who enjoyed a meat pie on the sidelines during a game was forced to resign from his team Tuesday after his meal spurred a formal investigation into gambling. The strange tale involves a Cinderella team, a bookmaker eager for publicity and, most important, a portly, middle-aged goalkeeper with a taste for meat and potatoes.

When Sutton United, a small team from the fifth tier of English soccer, met mighty Arsenal in an FA Cup quarter-final Monday, there was naturally a lot of attention on the game from all over. One of the Sutton players who was singled out for pregame press was Wayne Shaw, as much for his girth as for his talent.

His own team referred to him as the Roly Poly Goalie. He is 46 years old, 6-foot-2 and somewhere around 322 pounds, or 23 stone as the British papers usually put it. Mostly a coach, caretaker and community liaison for the small-time team, he is also its backup goalkeeper. As a teenager, he played for the professional club Southampton. Bookmakers rushed to provide betting opportunities on the high-profile nationally televised game. In its eagerness to stand out in the competitive industry, the lesserknown company Sun Bets offered lighthearted, but very real, odds of 8-1 that Shaw would eat a pie on the sideline during the match. It was great for a laugh. Then Shaw actually ate one. In the 83rd minute of the match, which Arsenal won, 2-0, Shaw, who was not playing was caught on camera dining on a meat and potato pie on the sideline.

Shaw said he had not profited from his pie, but knew that others had. “Obviously, we are not allowed to bet,” he said, but he acknowledged that “I think a few of the mates and a few of the fans” had.

No one is saying Shaw’s act was motivated by a criminal betting syndicate, but his manager, Paul Doswell, told reporters, “I don’t think it shows us in the best light.”