So JCI Sheffield entered a team to compete to in the Hop's pie eating contest.  To recap, there was a heat stage on Thursday 7th March and the final was on the 9th March.  JCI Sheffield put forward it's finest 4 eaters.  Lead by JCI Sheffield President, Dan “the Destroyer” Senter, Ben, Niki and Vicki were in with a good chance of winning this.  (Vicki stepped in at the last minute due to Craig pulling out).  

The heat on Thursday was pretty straight forward.  6 teams were split in to 2 heats.  The winner of each went through to the final plus the 2 fastest runners up, so basically, just the 2 slowest teams were eliminated.  

We figured that the toughness would be because of the dryness of the pies.  Every pie lover knows that you need nice gravy to go with them but these were without.  The strategy we used was to munch on the crusts then eat the moist centre after.  

This technique and the brilliance of Dan, who ate his pie in around 30 seconds, made it that we came first in our heat in just over 5 minutes.  To put that in perspective, last years winners did it in over 7 minutes.  We'd shaved nearly 2 minutes off last years winning time.  Going in to the final were were pretty confident. 

Dan the "Destroyer"

Team JCI Sheffield. Dan, Vicki, Ben and Niki

For the final, we had to replace Niki for someone else.  She'd made other plans.  We managed to recruit James (Vicki's boy friend).  Some of the other teams made chances to their team too but we were still confident of winning.  We'd won the heat by so much it felt like it was ours to lose... how wrong were we.  

The hard thing about eating the pies is the dryness.  It's hard to appreciate unless you have tried it.  Its almost impossible to tell who will be good at it.  Its got nothing to do with how big you are, its just how good you are at eating dry food which most people don't do very much.  Try eating 3 Jacobs cream crackers in a minute and you'll get a feel for the toughness.  

We got off to a reasonable start but not the best.  Dan, didn't manage to give us a big lead like he did in the heat stage.  The opposition had stepped up its game.  Vicki did well and we were still in it, until James stepped up.  He started off well but the dryness got to him.  No doubt if it was an ordinary food contest, he'd have powered though but the dryness was brutal.  By the time Ben stepped up, the contest had been lost.  

We still did well and managed to beat the time set by last year's winners.  Its just that the opposition was too strong.  The winning team did it in less than 5 minutes, so even if we would have reproduced our heat time, we'd still have not won.  Sometimes, your best is just not good enough.   C'est la vie, there's always next year and it was fun.  

Team JCI Sheffield 2. Ben, James, Vicki and Dan

To find out more about JCI Sheffield, email jcisheffield@gmail.com  Maybe you can join the team for next years contest.