A FOOTBALL club chairman has proved a true member of the upper crust with his picture perfect ‘pelfie’.

Paul Stockton’s entry in a competition to find the most exotic location to eat a traditional Birtwisles lunch was genuine pie in the sky, or pie in the ski, as he jumped on a plane and took his meat and potato classic up to the mountains of Italy.

The key to the competition, run by Birtwisles butchers and the Guardian, was to send in a picture of yourself with your pie in an unusual place, and we coined the term ‘pelfie’ to sum up the idea of a pie ‘selfie’.

Paul, the chairman of 1874 Northwich Football Club, won easily after he was photographed tucking into his lunch on the ski slopes of Claviere, in Italy.

“I ski and thought that would be a good thing to try to win the competition by taking a pie with me,” he said.

The timing was perfect as Paul, a retired teacher, was booked on a skiing holiday soon after the competition was announced.

All he then needed to do was work out how to transport the pie on a journey from Northwich to Stansted Airport, on a flight to Turin and on a journey on a chairlift.

He said: “What I did was made a little box for it to go in, like a burger box, and made it out of cardboard and packing tape.

“As well as a rucksack you get away with taking a little plastic bag on the plane so I put it in a plastic bag.

“I was a little concerned I would get it confiscated but I managed to get it through and up the mountain.”

When he arrived at the hotel Paul, who started skiing 40 years ago, popped his pie in the fridge, then the hotel warmed it up for him the next morning before its trip up the mountain.

His prize is £100 voucher for Birtwisles, which he plans to share with fellow pie lovers.

“I’ll take £100 worth of pies and use them for the football club,” he said.

“Birties pies are very popular with our supporters and when we have a home game at Winsford I take delivery of between 60 and 100 pies and take them there.

“The pies are very good.

“I’m in my 60s but remember when I was a student I used to work for the local council and we used to have our dinner break and of course we went to buy a pie at Birtwisles.”

Other entries included Wayne Garnett, from Garnett’s Car Wash, who ate his pie at Middlesbrough Football Club and Bill MacKenzie, a sheep farmer from Indiana, who made a pilgrimage to Birtwisles while visiting family.

Northwich Guardian: Wayne Garnett enjoys his pie at Middlesbrough FC.