What is the connection between a chant heard at sporting events (primarily in the UK and Australia) and a meat and potato pie?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,

"Oggy, oggy , oggy !" of course. What's it doing in Australia ?

You'll only hear it at rugby games, not other sporting events. The chant originates in the West Country (as does the pastie) though it was taken up by the Welsh comedian Max Boyce as part of one of his rugby- based routines and much popularised as a result.It also found its way to international games when the British Lions ( a multinational touring side) were abroad.

There is some story about the pastie being traditionally nailed to the goalposts (they're a bit odd down in the West).

The oggy is a Cornish pastie. Never thought of a pastie as a meat pie because it isn't cooked in, and so is not served in, a pie dish. Now it is made of meat and potato but it was originally the crescent of folded pastry with the meat and potato inside at one end and jam (jelly to Americans) inside at the other, the idea being that a tin-miner had both his meat course and his pudding course in the one casing. The crimped edge a is said to be so the miner could hold the pastie by the edge, dirtying it with his hands in the process, and eat the clean remainder.

Perhaps only British sports have such bizarre associations: throwing celery at Chelsea soccer games, contesting an international cricket match to win a funeral urn containing some ashes of wood, singing 'I'm for ever blowing bubbles' at West Ham soccer games, singing a funeral hymn (Abide with me') before the FA Cup Final, giving an international soccer player a cap for each game he plays...

Hi Fred,
You get 10 points for getting the right answer, but you forfeit 9 for arguing with the person who set the question. Benign indeed

quote:

You'll only hear it at rugby games, not other sporting events. The chant originates in the West Country (as does the pastie) though it was taken up by the Welsh comedian Max Boyce as part of one of his rugby- based routines and much popularised as a result.It also found its way to international games when the British Lions ( a multinational touring side) were abroad.

Actually, is heard at sporting events, including football (soccer) and rugby. A variation of it is used in Australia. The scouts use it, as does the Royal Navy.

quote:

The oggy is a Cornish pastie. Never thought of a pastie as a meat pie because it isn't cooked in, and so is not served in, a pie dish.

The pasty is a variety of meat pie. Just because it doesn't come in a pie dish with four and twenty blackbirds in it, doesn't mean it's not a pie!

Anyway, the chant:
"Oggy, oggy, oggy,
Oi, oi, oi!"
can be heard at sporting events. Here is a link to Wikipedia

And as you say the oggy is a name for the Cornish pasty, and here is a link, again to
Wikipedia

Well done Fred, you got one point out of ten, but unfortunately lose that too, for not opining on the accuracy of my assessment of your character on the Wallace and Gromit thread.

Ah, dance girl, I thought you were asking about 'Oggy, oggy, oggy', the words relating to pasties, not the form of the chant. The form is found in Australia (the Australians having realised that 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' fits ). They don't sing 'Oggy, oggy, oggy' and nor does anyone else outside rugby. (Proof of that? I've never heard that in all my long years of attending sporting events......did I ever tell you about the soccer game I watched in 'no man's land' at Christmas ? .)

Even the form is limited in its appearances. It was once heard at Chelsea , as Wikipedia says, as 'Ossie, Ossie , Ossie' when 'Ossie' (the late Peter Osgood, a Chelsea soccer hero) was playing (1964-1974). It was also heard at Tottenham when Osvaldo 'Ozzy' Ardiles played for Spurs (1977-1988). Otherwise you don't hear it, unless someone else comes along who is called 'Ossie' or' Ozzy' or our ever inventive crowds can find some other hero whose name fits.(Possible: it's only two syllables and they may notice they don't, strictly, need it to begin 'Oz'. Give them time !)

BTW there are some very successful and nice geldings out there: it's not true that they end up that way to stop them being violently aggressive.(In the process they lose, I suppose, their own 'creature comforts'). It's just that I don't see that as quite me somehow

Oh Fred,
You are so pedantic, but I wouldn't have you any other way, and I have to concede the question could have been better phrased.

(I don't think of you when I see geldings either. Are you sure the beast in question was a gelding? It just looked rather long in the tooth to me, that's all.)

Anyway, the pasty is still a pie!

quote:

Originally posted by FredPuli:
" ... Perhaps only British sports have such bizarre associations: throwing celery at Chelsea soccer games, contesting an international cricket match to win a funeral urn containing some ashes of wood, singing 'I'm for ever blowing bubbles' at West Ham soccer games, singing a funeral hymn (Abide with me') before the FA Cup Final, giving an international soccer player a cap for each game he plays...

No. Our best known is the rather bizarre ritual of home fans in Detroit throwing octopi on the ice after a big win by the Detroit Red Wings hockey team ! I believe in Florida they threw plastic / rubber rats for big goals in Panthers' games.

Yes dogspit, I knew there was something other than limp celery that got thrown at sports games, just didn't recall that it was octopi.