The Ayr United Hospitality Suite High School Challenge has been in the making for nearly a year after Ayr United Hospitality Manager, Iain Grant contacted DYW Ayrshire with his idea. Iain previously worked at Frankie & Benny’s and here had helped pioneer the Pizza and Pasta challenge which is still running a decade later. The opportunity was put to all South Ayrshire schools with Queen Margaret Academy and Belmont Academy taking this forward. An initial meeting was held with Teachers, DYW and Iain to agree timescales, challenge content and year group.
It was decided to roll out the competition to S3 Hospitality students and that the project should run April to May when schools have more flexibility whilst senior pupils are off on exam leave. Iain visited the schools individually to launch the challenge, explaining pupils should invent a new dish for Ayr United players to eat after a match that takes into account a good balance of protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats. The young people were asked to form groups of no more than 4 members and create a recipe that uses only 8 ingredients in total, 7 from a list provided by the club and 1 guest ingredient.
A semi-final was then held at Queen Margaret Academy where teams from both schools presented their dish and it’s nutritional content using PowerPoint presentation to a panel of judges from Ayr United Football Club.
2 teams from each school were then selected to attend a final at Ayr United Hospitality Suite on 22nd May 2019. Here they were able to work with the club chef to cook their creation and make any necessary tweaks before cooking again and presenting this dish to the judges. After a long deliberation ‘Crunchy Cajun Chicken’ from Belmont Academy was crowed the 2019 winner, strips of chicken breast, rolled in cornflakes and served with sweet potato wedges, tangy salad and a side salad.
The winning team will be invited to a home game in the new football season where they will be guests of the Directors and be presented with their trophy on the pitch at half time.
Pupils who took part said, “It was a fun, new, and exciting experience.” and “It was a chance to meet new people and improve your cooking skills.”