German 5^thdivision club Stuttgart have today announced a bold new sponsorship deal that they hope will take them into the 21^st century and beyond.

Fray Bentos Pies have linked up with the German club in a 55 million Euro deal over 5 years which includes a stadium rebrand from the Mercedes-Benz Arena to the ‘Fray Bentos Steak & Kidney Pie Arena’ plus fresh aluminium cladding around the sides of the iconic stadium to reproduce that authentic shallow pie dish look.

                                                  Mercedes-Benz-Arena prior to pie cladding

                                                         

We were due to interview Impediments manager Nick Spoons but unfortunately he had been rushed to hospital after suffering a nasty gash to his hand from a tin opener.

We did however manage to speak to a number of players including new signing Vincenzo Grifo.

We asked him what he thought about Stuttgart's new sponsor?

' I love em me, I mean both me and Piccs immediately put in our transfer requests from Verona when we heard about the deal – all we get there is fuckin pasta & healths shite like, me, I love a good Bentos meaty pud, Piccs likes the deep fill steak and ale, he's mad for em, can't get enough, like me, two, three a day, breakfast lunch dinner, fuckin kaboosh!

Kevin Wimmer 'chicken dinner' was just as enthusiastic: ah man, I love and cherish the Bentos, I sleep with an unopened chicken and bacon every night on me pillow, give it a little kiss before going to sleep like. I find they're good for me figure too cos it takes me a week to open one so I never eat too much, in fact I'm down to 6 stones now, who needs weight watchers?

Well the first team seem in favour but what about the youth, maybe they wouldn't be as popular with the more dietary conscious youngsters yet to break into the first team.

Che Adams had just finished his morning warm up and was about to start training when we caught up with him: 'Fray Bentos? Wassat then? Oh the pie tins, yeah fam, we got bare tins round here, the puddings are fanatic for training with, really improves your gastrocnemiusmuscles, all the lads use them, once you can ping a 20 yarder into the top corner with a Bentos pudding you don't worry about doing it with a football. Not so good for the keepers of course.'

Last on our list was club Physician and Dietician Dr Heiter. We asked him what the effect of such a stodgy, pastry & processed meat diet would be on the players performance?

'Well firstly please call me Josef, secondly you are making the mistake all make in thinking the pies contain meat, they are in fact 100% vegetarian, the various chilli beef, steak, chicken is all plant based offal, nothing more. The pastry is very healthy, very very healthy, even Gwyneth Paltrow swears by it, where do you think Gloop got it's name?.' No, it can only increase the players performance on and off the pitch, all of them except Lazzari, so sad we had to let him go, hated pies you see, and needles.

Interesting times ahead for Stuttgart it seems, already the club badge has been replaced with a Bentos minced beef and onion pie emblem and the clatter of thin, aluminium pie dish cladding can be heard going up around the stadium. Now, how do I get all these pies home, they weigh a ton!