An Ode to Bovril
Paying tribute to a constant meaty companion to my footballing life
Is there anything more miserable than an English winter?
The days are short, the weather is damp and they are generally punctuated by miserable trips to a freezing Hawthorns to watch the Albion lose to Blackburn Rovers.
But as the nights draw in and the irritating spectre of my seasonal affective disorder clouds my head, there is one bone-warming consolation that looms on the horizon: Bovril.
For those uninitiated in the ways of the broth, it’s a mysterious substance best described in the words of Alan Partridge: “beef tea”.
Though it’s nominally a beef and yeast extract, the process that goes into making Bovril remains a happy mystery to most people who drink it. Though it can be used as a spread or sandwich filling, it is most commonly used as the basis for a hot drinkable broth with a deeply savoury flavour profile – salty, beefy, full of umami.
Crucially, Bovril is an absolute staple on the terraces up and down the country. In fact, Bovril is completely ubiquitous across British football grounds – there’s not a single away game that I travelled to in the 24/25 season at which I couldn’t get my hands on a cup of Bovril.
This connection is especially strong north of the border. Such is the deep seated connection between Bovril and Scottish football culture that one of the country’s leading football blogs is called “Pie and Bovril – The Staple Diet of Scottish Football.”1
Despite being a lifelong vegetarian, Bovril remains the only meat-adjacent consumable that I consistently partake in. You can keep your T-bone steaks. You can keep your bacon sandwiches. There’s only one thing that tempts me to stray from the path of vegetarian enlightenment. And it’s a piping paper cup of jet black meaty broth.
So what drives my personal obsession with Bovril? And what lies behind the deep association of football culture with this most bizarre of beefy beverages?
I would suggest there are a triptych of factors at play here.
First – and most straightforwardly – Bovril seems to have been tailor made as the ideal accompaniment to a football season that mostly consists of cold nights huddled on the terraces.
Not only is Bovril delicious, it’s unique warmth and umami-ness means it is absolutely unmatched in its ability to re-heat the frostbitten football supporter. On a biting evening underneath the towering Hawthorns floodlights, there is no better defence against the encroachment of mild hypothermia than to grip a paper cup of boiling gravy with both hands and thaw oneself from the inside out.
Second is the question of performative working-class masculinity. Despite the (welcome) increasing diversity of football crowds around the country, football’s cultural compass remains firmly working-class and masculine in tenor. Against this context, Bovril has the feeling of being a particularly traditional, working-class and macho drink.2
Some of that masculine aura lies in Bovril’s humble origins. The substance that would eventually come to be known as Bovril was originally developed in the 1870s as a means of supplying Napoleon III’s French army with much-needed protein without tonnes of meat to.3
From that point – especially since the establishment of the Bovril company in 1899 – Bovril has embedded itself into the British imagination as a branded beverage which conjures images of health, energy, stamina and stoicism. Indeed, the very name “Bovril” is a blend word that translates to mean the “the strength of an Ox”.
This is a theme which has been explored in some detail by food historian Leslie Steinitz, who researches the ways in which branded foods have historically embedded themselves in the public psyche. To quote Steinitz directly:
“From the start, Bovril was heavily advertised through campaigns that tapped into the mood of the public quite brilliantly. It was British and the company worked hard to make sure it was a food of choice of the army – it was patriotic and nutritious. Advertising featured pictures of bulls: the strongest of beasts, whose meat turned British men into the strongest and smartest in Europe. Essentially Bovril was imagined as a bull in a bottle…Bovril slotted into the temperance movement as a drink that was alcohol-free but not namby-pamby..”4
But look beyond the unique taste and the performative masculinity that Bovril facilitates, a crucial third element to the deep affection football supporters have for the drink emerges: ritual.
To explain what I mean, let’s examine the role that Bovril has come to play in my football supporting life.
Over the past few years, Bovril has been a solid, consistent meaty companion to some of my most precious moments. It’s been reliably nestled in my chilly fingers as I make memories with my family, socialise with our friends and celebrate (increasingly rare) iconic Albion moments.
But despite this fact, drinking a Bovril at the football isn’t even something I think about. It’s just something I do. I simply coast through the turnstiles, post up at the food kiosk and buy myself a cup on autopilot.
It is here that I believe Bovril can help us illuminate the ritualistic nature of football culture.
I’ve written before on this blog about the centrality of rituals to football culture, those little continuities, repeated patterns of behaviour and tradition that give the game we all love its meaning.
As someone who spends their professional life writing, researching and teaching about cultural heritage, it is my belief that this sense of “continuity” is absolutely fundamental to what I call heritage. In fact, I believe the power of heritage – be that tangible monuments or intangible traditions – lies in its ability to provide communities and individuals a thread of continuity against wider contexts of change.
For football supporters around the country, Bovril represents one such thread.
No matter churning chaos or stress in our lives, Bovril remains as a quietly steadfast presence, warming us through our fleeting escapes into the wondrous alternative universe of football every weekend.
As I sit finishing this piece, I’m on a train down towards The Valley in what feels like a doomed trip to watch the Albion play an in-form Charlton. But whilst the prospect of another 90 minutes of turgid, stodgy football isn’t thrilling me, the idea that I’ll be able to put down my work laptop, trudge to the ground and warm myself with the warm comfort of a Bovril fills me with a unique sense of joy.
I suppose most people have a comfort food, perhaps a comfort drink that they turn to.
It’s very rare that an entire community at large has one. That’s what Bovril is for us football supporters at large. And long may it reign.
Goldblatt, D. (2015) The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football, London: Penguin.
Marshall, C. (2020) Class Double Act: The History of Pie and Bovril. Nutmeg Magazine. Issue 15.
Steinitz, L. (2013) Bovril: a very beefy (and British) love affair. Available at: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/bovril-a-very-beefy-and-british-love-affair.
Great read, Josh. Fully agree - I order Bovril because I'm self conscious ordering a hot chocolate.
I have fond memories of you answering my question about Bovril on the old Boing Cast!