In pictures: World Pie-Eating Championships 2025

Tom O’Neil, a 24-year-old children’s home worker from Blackpool (although he was born in Hawkley Hall), chomped through his pastry in one minute two seconds.

There was increased security at Harry’s Bar on Wallgate for this year’s contest after a plan was apparently hatched to destabilise it.

Officials were tipped off by local operatives that at least one prospective competitor had planned to smuggle in a B&Q funnel under a baggy anorak, having developed a technique to divert pie spillage down inside the front of his trousers, thereby masking actual consumption levels during the rapid pie-eating.