Owners of takeaways in Southampton have issued a stark warning ahead of the visit of Burnley to St Mary's on Saturday for a Premier league football match.
Normally Southampton is an easy City to get a pie in before a Saints match at St Mary's but Southampton Association Of Fast Food Outlets (Saffo) has put out an emergency warning ahead of Burnley's vist on Saturday that their members may not be able to satisfy demand for pie's with the travelling support statistically having the ability to eat the City dry of pie's.
Southampton being a Southern city is not renowned for its pie eating, indeed a resident of Southampton has been shown in Government Statistics recently released, to only consume a pie once every 23.7 days, to put that into plain English that means the average Sotonian consumes only 15.4 pie's a year.
That is barely a fortnights consumption for the travelling hungry hordes of Burnley, a resident of that town in the same statistics was shown to eat an average of 2.3 pie's per day, a whopping 839.5 pie's a year.
But it doesn't stop there, in Southampton chip shops by law do not serve gravy, so whilst a Sotonian will average less than half a pint in gravy consumption in a year, his counterpart in East Lancashire will spill more than that in his excitement as he puts his change back in his pocket, with an average of 1.7 pints of gravy per day being eaten/drunk most of that with pie's, to give an example of how much that is for a town the size of Burnley, if you were to drain Southampton water and refill it with the gravy consumed in Burnley in an average year, then not only could you still sail the likes of the Brittannia up Southampton Water but the actual shoreline would be up by the Bargate.
Saffo have warned that their members will be unable to keep up with demand on Saturday especially if stocks are depleted on Friday by any Claret's fans arriving early.
A Pie alert, the first since Wigan played here 3 years ago has been issued along with a Gravy Drought warning.
One sad fact is that some unscrupulous fast food outlets may look to cash in on a visiting support who may be unable to contain themselves if starved of their normal diet, pie prices are expected to rise drastically on Thursday evening and a Steak & Kidney pie costing £2 then, may rise to as much as £2.25 by Saturday lunchtime, putting it out of reach of the pockets of all but the most affluent of Burnley supporters.
This could have major ramifications for public disorder as Burnley supporters going cold turkey for pastry based savoury products may be unable to control themselves and looting of shops could take place.
South Central Ambulance services have cancelled all leave and have put staff on high alert, paramedics have been issued with Bisto sachets, water, a spoon and a kettle and will be ready to administer first aid to Northerners unable to cope.
Hampshire Police had initially intended to bring in the mounted division to deal with trouble but decided this would be too much of a risk when faced with a mob who may be too hungry to be choosy.
So a few safety tips.
1. Do not flaunt pastry based savoury products in open view in the streets leading up to St mary's
2. Anyone found dealing in Bisto powder in the St Mary's area will be subject to zero tolerance by the Police, excuses that it is for personal use only will not be accepted.
3. If you are approached by a Northerner look at their eyes first if they appear to be unable to ffocus and they are standing on their own tongues then that are almost certainly suffering from pie withdrawal.
4. If you come across the above carry a small pork pie in a pocket so you can throw it at them and run off whilst they are distracted.
5. Do not get into any pie eating contests with them
6. Do not mention none meat based pie's like Cheese and onion pasties or apple pies, the existence of these products has been suppressed in East Lancs under the official secrets act.
7. Do not even ask what mushy peas are !!!!!!!