St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park: ‘They’re dishing up a bit of something different’

My ideas about food at the football were forged in the early 90s over a soggy cone of chips with salad cream dribbled all over them. It still makes me gag. But times have changed. There are plenty of influencers and Instagrammers posting the best and worst food from football grounds around the world. Thanks to @FootyScran, for example, I now know that you can get an ice-cream sandwich at Bali United, and to avoid the bacon roll at Southampton FC.

Last year I realised that the flaccid-cone-of-chips days were long gone. I was watching Birmingham City at St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park when my brother-in-law announced he was off to get chips. I steeled myself. He came back with a beautiful heap of crunchy fried potatoes, drenched with a spicy cauliflower curry and topped with a zingy pickle. It was a world away from the horrifying condiments of old.

I’m a later-in-life convert to the Blues. I hitched my wagon to a family who have drunk the Bovril at St Andrew’s stadium for decades. When they first started taking me along to matches, we brought sandwiches wrapped in foil. My father-in-law told me that back in the day, the food was “burgers, hotdogs, lots of onions and sauce and pop. I had to be starving, and it repeated on me until the final whistle.” Hence the packed lunches. But now, the fanzones – scranzones? – are filled with vans offering more elevated snacks. They are pricier than the vans selling burgers and chips outside the gates, but what they’re dishing up is a bit of something different.

On a recent sunny, chilly Saturday afternoon, we left the sandwiches at home and tried to eat our way around St Andrew’s, hopping from van to van. (Everything we ate cost between £5.50 and £15.) We got there three hours before kick-off and began at the Little Greek, where we went for the halloumi kebab. Fat, generous chunks of deep-fried cheese and seasoned chips were piled on to a soft, puffy flatbread and brightened up with a dollop of Greek salad and a trio of hefty sauces: garlic mayo, mint yoghurt and a spicy zigzag of pink chipotle. It felt strange to eat such a fundamentally post-pub snack in the cold light of the pre-match, but as starters go, it more than did the job. Next door was Small Fry, a peachy-orange van with “In cod we trust” stamped on the back of it. It’s 2026, so it was not selling cod, but coley, a pollock more sustainable than cod and an adequate stand-in, keeping the prices at a fair level. The batter, made with plain and rice flours and sparkling water, was tempura-like, crispy and airy, delicate, not at all greasy, and my favourite detail of the day. The homemade Japanese-style curry sauce was also a treat, though I’d have liked it on the side, rather than on top, so as not to immediately snuff out that impeccable crunch.

There was plenty of fried chicken, each van offering a slight twist on the theme, but I was drawn to Only Jerkin’, not just for the pun (which works best in a Sheffield accent) but for the jerk cauliflower nuggets triple-dipped in a ginger beer batter, because, well, come on. They do a mixed box with two types of chicken, mango and jerk, but they let me have a chicken and veg combo. Served with pots of sweet mango mayo and fiery jerk BBQ sauce, the heat from the coatings on both the jerk chicken and cauliflower nuggets pressed forward with determination before bursting into life. I would go for the cheap joke about what the Blues could have learned from this on the day, etc, but I know that my family would be upset.

It was solid matchday food, full of flavour and heart, and largely worth a splurge, though the vegan hotdogs are probably best avoided, as any sensible person might have guessed. But what I really wanted was curry, something that could do what that cauliflower had done. Ranv’s Rasoi serves traditional north Indian and Punjabi cuisine, and has been a fixture at St Andrew’s for the last few years. Today it was in a stand you could get to only if you had tickets for that stand. I did not have tickets for that stand. I could see the van. I could have shouted my order through the turnstiles, but I’d already embarrassed myself by asking a number of different men in three colours of neon vest if they would accompany me in and out again. They all said no, which was reasonable. A nice man and his son came over to help, because, they said, I was looking a bit confused. Only mildly, I said, I just really wanted to try that curry. I sent Ranv’s Rasoi a message on Instagram, asking if there was any chance I could order from the other side of the turnstiles. There was no reply. Again, reasonable.

A little dejected, gently stuffed, we ended up being guided by fate. Two people in blue fleeces walked past carrying trays of Pukka pies, reminding me of the chicken balti pie I’d heard was a stadium staple. I have not eaten a Pukka pie in years, but there’s no denying that the mouth-scalder we had justified its legendary status. The pastry was so crisp that my paper fork buckled. It was packed with chicken and veg, I could taste the garlic and ginger, and the sauce was punchy with spices and heat.

We had pudding from Pretty Parlour, a mountain of chocolate cookies made gooey in a microwave, with milk chocolate sauce and a heap of vanilla ice-cream. It was toothmeltingly sweet, too sweet for me, but the others had no complaints. The Blues’ mascots, Beau and Belle Brummie, wandered by and we had our photo taken with them. We had a pint. We sat down to watch the match in high spirits. Then we drew against Sheffield Utd, a painful 1-1, any dreams of promotion now fading. I looked at my phone. Ranv’s Rasoi had replied. Soon, he said, they would be in the Kop, where anyone could reach them. There was still some hope in my heart.

St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park, Cattell Road, Birmingham B9 4RL. Featuring the Little Greek; Small Fry; Only Jerkin’; Ranv’s Rasoi; Pukka Pies; and Pretty Parlour

Top picture: Birmingham City fans Chris Lissaman and daughter Olivia, four, enjoy lunch from the Small Fry Fish and Chips van