Neil Collier, 42, took only 23.91 seconds to down the steaming slab of carbohydrate and snatch the coveted title of world pie-eating champion from 37-year-old Barry Rigby. "He just seemed to open his throat and down it went," said organiser Tony Callaghan, whose antics have boosted Northern pastry, meat and gravy for 19 years. "He's from Bolton, mind, which is a crying shame for a Wiganer to have to say, but he's certainly learned how to eat pies somewhere. Probably in Wigan."
The pie contest celebrates the nickname "pie-eaters" given to local miners who went back early after the general strike and were accused of eating humble pie. The town used its foodie reputation, which also includes Uncle Joe's mint balls and pea wet (juice from cooking mushy peas), to turn the insult into a tourist draw. Crowds cheered as Collier accepted his medal, following some of the strictest checking in the contest's history. Official Iain Macauley said that for the first time in a decade, sweepers had been sent in to check the floor around the winner for discarded material. An ounce of pastry or meat particles would have meant instant disqualification.
Collier was also lucky to survive an incident in the pre-pie runoffs when he appeared to start lifting his pie from its tray before the yellow piestick had been removed, signalling the start of the timing. The contest is minutely regulated and Macauley said there had been "a whisker between the distance between the pie and Collier's mouth" falling below the permitted minimum at the start of the "biting". The previous record was 35.86 seconds, and other landmarks have included the brief and immediately discontinued use of vegetarian pies in 2007.
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