The thick, warming Bovril at Clay Cross FC one evening game to help see off the cold made me wonder where Bovril started to become an iconic football drink.
Bovril is a drink that is associated with football. Many cups and mugs of it have been drunk at matches, particularly on cold winter days on wet and windy terraces, and huddled up to food kiosks. Sometimes, it was brought in by the supporters, in ‘Thermos Flasks’ but usually dispensed by a willing helper often in a freezing hut or warm and welcoming club house. Surprisingly, this British beverage originated in Canada, where a Canadian based Scottish butcher named John Lawson Johnson developed his business after years of running a very successful butcher in Edinburgh, where his beef stock was very popular.
The products big chance came when Napoleon III ordered tinned beef for his army, but Johnston suggested a canned beef extract, and Johnston’s fluid beef was born. A return to London in 1886 saw him promote his product, which he now called Bovril. Scott and Shackleton took it to the Antarctic, and their use to stem the cold and fortify them was noted.
Johnston’s promotional and advertising skills were exceptional, and one advert showed Pope Leo XIII with a steaming mug of Bovril with the heading “Two infallible powers. The Pope and Bovril. ” Within a few years of launch, Bovril was being sold in over 3000 grocers, pubs, and chemists.
It is Scottish football that seems to claim Bovril as its own with an archived ‘Glasgow Evening Post’ from the Friday 23rd September 1892 edition showing an advert for a ‘Grand Football Match’ at Ibrox with a strap line of ‘Bovril Served Hot’. In the same week, the club linked Bovril with pies. Before the start of the ‘Great War’, one stand at Ibrox was known by fans as The Bovril Stand due to a large advert on it. The rest is history as it spread as the preferred drink of fans all over Britain.
Its popularity has waned in recent years with the rise of all types football food, coffee, and alcohol taking over the tradition of a pie and Bovril.
Bovril as a product now comes in stock cubes, jars, and granules, making it easy to make a cup. Even a vegan version, based on beets, was launched in 2020 in conjunction with Forest Green Rovers but this seems to have fallen by the wayside along with a Chicken based version where a group of devotees are trying to get the company to resurrect the product.
Bovril will, I’m sure, be with us for many more years.
payonthegate 