bovril

It’s the start of winter, in a country which is chilly at the best of times. Tonight our Saturday afternoon kickoff time is shunted to a weekday evening, necessitating the deployment of floodlights and furry jackets right from the off. And to make matters worse the clocks have now changed, so it’s an extra hour’s worth of dark and cold: by the time you strap yourself into your car after the game and whack the window defroster up to the max your watch may tell you it’s 10pm, but as far as the alignment of the planets are concerned it’s virtually 11 compared to two Mondays ago. No time to be outdoors. So there’s one thing for sure – there’ll be plenty of Bovril supped inside Pittodrie this evening.

Which, when you think of it, is really rather bizarre. Bovril? To drink? What on earth is that all about?

Now lest anyone think that this is a weak-bellied ‘Gads min’-atorial from someone who just hasn’t tried the beverage in question, little could be further from the truth. There is a fair chance I’m drinking one right now, as you read this very sentence. Its presence as part of the matchday routine is as essential as it is unquestioned: the gap between the number of football matches I’ve attended and the number of cups of Bovril I have downed there is not wide. Often have I obliterated the roof of my mouth with impatience for a scalding meaty fix; many is the Maxpax mug whose floor I have scraped to release the obdurate blob of congealed beef juice not fully dissolved by the seething jet of a pie stall’s urn. And therein lies the oddity, for I cannot say I have ever – ever – been tempted, under any other circumstances, to boil up a mugful of ox extract, solely with the intention of drinking it. There is clearly something about football that makes us want to drink gravy. This is an act which very few would consider in the comfort of their own homes.

I get the received logic: it goes with a pie. Ordinarily, given a plate and some cutlery, most of us would choose to drizzle our pastried steak with a generous dod of gravy; denied such luxury, drinking it from a beaker is an allowable substitute. But on that basis, why not the accompaniment of a hot dog with a mug of mustard, or a macaroni pie served with a drink of cheese sauce, or a curry pie washed down with neat balti sauce? Disgusting perversions all, I’m sure we can agree, yet nobody bats an eyelid at soccer fans drinking a condiment in their thousands provided it tastes of cows. Besides which the argument is fatally flawed by the fact that the pie itself, indeed any hot food in general, is merely an optional extra here – crisps and Bovril, Mars bar and Bovril, even just the Bovril on its own, all are perfectly acceptable orders from the football kiosk. It isn’t even an option you’d be given anywhere else on the planet. More tea vicar, or would you prefer some beef stock?

Perhaps it is part of the football experience because, fundamentally, that is a trial to be borne. We visit foreboding towns, stand in unaccommodating stadia, endure all weathers and thole horrendously unedifying and unproductive football, then troop home glumly as if it is our eternal punishment for some long-forgotten sin. We wouldn’t open the front door on dark November nights for any other reason, far less actually go outside for hours at a time. Of course we drink meat sauce. Of course! Nothing less will do. A nice sweet tea or a perfectly chilled spring water would lessen our discomfort just a bit too much. Do you think we’re here to enjoy ourselves or something? Pah.

Pass the gravy min, it’s getting caal’.