‘I misplaced dream job for consuming pie vs Arsenal – I fell out of affection with soccer’

A rotund goalkeeper being caught scoffing a pie in a dugout throughout a tie towards a Premier League heavyweight. It’s bought all of the elements for a dream FA Cup story, proper?

However, it changed into a nightmare for Wayne Shaw, who misplaced his dream job and was the topic of an FA instigation for alleged playing breaches. Seven years on from the saga and Shaw has solely simply regained his love of the sport.

The self-styled ‘Roly Polie Goalie’ had grow to be one thing of a media darling within the build-up to Sutton United’s FA Cup fifth spherical conflict with Arsenal. Along with fellow non-leaguers Lincoln, Sutton’s run to the final 16 had been the story of the 2016/17 event.

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“It was crazy with interviews here, there and everywhere,” Shaw tells Daily Star Sport. “I told them [the media] it was about the players and the club, but they built me up to be a… not a celebrity, but it was weird.”

The media had been drawn to Shaw, a team-mate of Alan Shearer’s within the Southampton youth ranks, as he wasn’t your common back-up keeper and coach. He poured his coronary heart and soul into the membership.

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During that cup run, he held a daily raffle known as ‘Draw with Shaw’ to lift additional funds for the membership. He additionally helped handle the membership’s synthetic pitch, extensively utilized by the area people, in addition to endeavor different group work.

“It was my life,” provides Shaw, who hails from Southampton. “I used to sleep up there Monday to Thursday because I lived an hour-and-a-half away. I slept on the settee in the manager’s office. It was an interesting time!”

Shaw was nonetheless laborious at work on the massive day itself and was even caught hoovering the away dugout prepared for Arsene Wenger and his facet. He says: “I didn’t even go with the lads for the pre-match meal. I was making sure everything was right for the night. That’s life in non-league.”

Onto the incident that led to his unhappy departure from the membership, he recollects: “At half-time, I went and got myself a pie and wrapped it in my towel. Then in the 83rd minute, when all the subs had gone on, I thought, ‘Let’s have a bit of fun’, and that’s all it was.”

The BBC cameras quickly flashed to Shaw within the dugout devouring the notorious pastry, which was really a pasty slightly than a pie, and the overwhelming majority of viewers loved a superb chuckle.

However, after the Gunners had gone by way of 2-0 to arrange a quarter-final with Lincoln, issues took a extra critical twist for Shaw. It revolved round playing guidelines as a bookmaker had provided odds on Shaw being caught consuming a pie throughout the recreation. There was a marketplace for a streaker invading the pitch, which additionally occurred, though it wasn’t captured on TV.

“They put a market on at 8/1 for me to eat a pie. I’ve had it all my life [fans chanting], ‘Who ate all the pies…’, so I thought I’d have a bit of fun,” says Shaw. “Little did I know that 72 people had placed a novelty bet at £5 each and they paid out a few thousand pound. A streaker ran on the pitch too. That didn’t get shown, but I got shown eating a pie!

“It wasn’t a setup, I was just having fun but the FA took all my phone records and bank statements. There was nothing on there. They traced three people back to my Facebook account who had placed a bet.

“They asked if I had told them but I had 3,000 people on my Facebook. Wouldn’t I have told them all [if he was planning something]? They were clutching, but they had to be seen to be doing something. They brought a charge against me about six months later of intentionally influencing a better market. It was a big hoo-ha that was taken all out of proportion.”

Shaw was fined £375 and banned for 2 months after each the FA and the Gambling Commission appeared into the matter. The firm that owned the bookmaker was fined £84,000 by the Gambling Commission for providing the chances.

By then, Shaw had already been pressured into quitting the job he beloved as Sutton felt beneath stress to behave. He recollects: “The club said, ‘We either sack you or you resign’. I was like, ‘What do you think I’ve done?’

“They said it wasn’t good on the club. I said, ‘You’re the ones who took the sponsorship from Sun Bets [Sutton had changed shirt sponsors for the game], not me. You gave them access all areas’.”

Shaw continued to be in demand with the media and was roped into numerous consuming competitions and different private appearances. While a few of it was pleasurable, it didn’t substitute the thrill of being concerned day after day with a soccer membership.

“I probably got about a year’s salary in three months,” he provides. “A lot of the things that people wants me to do and I was like, ‘nah’. I had about 10 agents contact me wanting me to do this and that.

“But I was just a local lad. All I wanted to do was go back to some form of normality. I hadn’t killed anyone.

“A lot of people saw the funny side of it and wanted me back at Sutton. People thought I’d been hard done by and that the joy had gone out of football. I could see the club’s point of view, but I don’t think they understood the magnitude of drawing a side like Arsenal.

“I did some work with Eastleigh [in hospitality] recently and they were one game from playing Man United [in the FA Cup] if they beat Newport. I warned them it would be like a circus. Right up until the day of the game, everyone would want a piece of then.

“So did I feel hard done by the club? Possibly. I think they could have turned it into a positive, but they didn’t.” Still seeing the humorous facet, Shaw then quips: “They hung me out to pie!”

Less amusing was the very fact the saga crushed his love of soccer for years. He explains: “I misplaced my love of soccer, proper up till a number of months in the past. It was once I was again at Eastleigh once I bought the bug again. The chairman [former Sunderland Stewart Donald] there may be sensible. He does the whole lot he can to assist the followers.

“I ended up driving a mini bus so fans could go up to Hartlepool and I was getting ex-Saints players in to talk to hospitality guests on matchdays. I really enjoyed it.”

Shaw is now serving to out at native membership Totton, of the Southern League, in addition to working as a supply driver for a laundry companies firm. Seven years on, he’s nonetheless remembered for probably the most well-known pie in FA Cup historical past.

“I still get recognised, which is nice, although probably not for the right reasons in my football career. But at least I’m remembered for something,” he laughs.