Who Ate All the Pies?

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"Who Ate All the Pies?" is a football chant sung by fans in Britain. It is usually sung to the tune of "Knees Up Mother Brown" and is aimed at overweight footballers, officials or opposing supporters.

Contents

[edit] Origin

According to The Cat's Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Cliches (ISBN 9780141025162), the "Who ate all the pies?" chant was first sung in 1894 by Sheffield United supporters, and directed at the club's goalkeeper William "Fatty" Foulke, who weighed over 300 pounds (136 kg).[1]

If the tune used was "Knees Up Mother Brown", then it is highly improbable that the chant originated with Willie Foulke, as "Knees Up Mother Brown" was not written until 1938, and Foulke died in 1916.[original research?] Also, football songs that were parodies of popular songs did not come into fashion until after the First World War.[citation needed]

[edit] Later chants

The chant has been associated with the striker Micky Quinn, who played for six football clubs in the 1980s and 1990s. He was particularly identified with the chant following an incident in a match between Quinn's then club Newcastle United and Grimsby Town in March 1992, in which a fan threw a pie onto the pitch which Quinn promptly picked up and ate.[2]

[edit] Background

Fans in the UK, at football games have long had a tradition of eating meat pies at half-time. On occasion there are not enough pies to go round and so any player looking a little overweight gets catcalled with the question "Who ate all the pies?".

[edit] The lyrics

The lyrics of the chant are:

Who ate all the pies?
Who ate all the pies?
You fat bastard,
You fat bastard,
You ate all the pies!

One variation replaces the second line with "The burgers and the fries."

Part of the song (the third line - "You fat bastard") has been adopted by Roy Chubby Brown as his anthem and is enthusiastically chanted by the audiences before his stage performances.

This line was also chanted at gigs by 90s indie band Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and included as the intro on their album 30 Something. It was chanted at their manager Jon Fat Beast, who had a tendency to appear on stage stripped to the waist, displaying his ample abdomen.

[edit] The vegetarian pie-less version

The Vegetarian Society have used a variant of this, "Who ate all the peas?", as a slogan. They displayed it on promotional hoardings in football grounds as part of their "Men and Meat Campaign", intended to combat the idea that vegetarianism is "something for women".

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Rebecca, Evans. "Football legend inspired pie chant", Daily Mirror, 2007-09-11. Retrieved on 2008-05-21. 
  2. ^ Interview with Micky Quinn - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article472903.ece