"The Cobbler"
Northamptonshire
Ramblings
June 2010
Ramblings
June 2010
"The Cobbler"
Any views on Pigeon Racing in Northamptonshire to
Tel: 01933 410322 or
Email: russellbradford@talktalk.net
Copyright, all rights reserved, Russell Bradford 2010
Ramblers Itinerary Racing Pigeon Post RPP Index to Articles
Any views on Pigeon Racing in Northamptonshire to
Tel: 01933 410322 or
Email: russellbradford@talktalk.net
Copyright, all rights reserved, Russell Bradford 2010
Ramblers Itinerary Racing Pigeon Post RPP Index to Articles
With the National races coming thick and fast, and pigeon racing being fairly ‘full-on’ at the moment, I again seem to be playing catch up with reporting about races in the Northamptonshire Championship Club.
Our second race on the program across the Channel was from Alencon with the BICC, and the birds were held until 10.00 and released into another head wind, backing north-west, so a steady fly was on the cards for around 270 miles. The ever-present Andy Smith took first and third on 1274 & 1227 with Barry and Troy Hobbs splitting him for second on 1249. Albert Farrow clocked just after six and a half hours to take fourth. The club purchased new software to produce the race result from Paul O’Leary at the beginning of the season and an aspect that has caught everybody’s interest, is the column calculating the time by which every member on the result has been beaten by the winner. It adds a whole new characteristic to viewing the result, and instead of members saying I’ve been beaten by (say) 25 yards; it’s now “I’ve been beaten by one minute and seventeen seconds”. The clubs next Channel race was the disastrous Saran race with the BICC on May 30th, although the velocities told only part of the story. Andy Smith sent 23 pigeons of the clubs total entry of 123 birds and was the only member to clock day birds on velocities of 967 & 933 to take first and second club. The “beaten/by column” on the result then showed a three hour gap to Graham Caple taking third next morning on 739, with Jan Czarnota in fourth with his turned north road first bird on 698. From 123 birds just 14 birds or 11% finished up on the result; the majority timed on the second day with the last four places filled with velocities of 513; 477; 396 & 395, which just about sums up how disastrous this race was. Of the 14 birds on the result 7 pigeons took more than 16 hours to complete the 320/330 mile course. Without wishing to particularly highlight any other race reports, I will however comment on a personal basis that I find press coverage stating merely that “it turned out to be a hard race” without acknowledging huge losses and giving due explanation and proper coverage of the reasons for such an unmitigated smash, as doing very little indeed on the PR front. Every club at what-ever level will from time to time experience difficult and hard races, but when many thousands of birds go missing, as happened with the MNFC YB race last year, it should become a responsibility of the clubs management to investigate; not to necessarily lay blame at anyone’s door, but certainly at the very least discover a valid and viable reason for the cause and then communicate it to the members. Is not the Government (and every other body in authority), constantly telling us that “lessons are to be learnt” from what-ever the transgression of the moment might be, and yet pigeon racing seems incapable of learning from its mistakes. Communicating the lessons learnt, surely is the only way to try and engender some trust and create goodwill for the future, whereas hoping a bad race will soon be forgotten simply doesn’t work. Having got that off my chest I’ll sit back and wait for the onslaught of response.
The NCC had three training races with the first in mid May at Littlehampton. 10 members sent 193 birds with Peter Chamberlain claiming a close run race, by one yard (or 7 seconds) on 1430 from Russell & Clare Bradford in the next three slots. We then visited Portsmouth with 111 birds from 8 members, and Rodney Oakes of ‘Rock-&-Roll’ fame took first and second from Pete Chamberlain in third and fourth with velocities spread across 1371 to 1337 representing just two and a half minutes. A short trainer back at Newbury with 9 sending 146 birds saw Andy Smith taking top spot, and had he not done so, Pete Chamberlain would have claimed all the podium places. The penultimate Channel race on the club’s program was from Poitiers on June 12th, and not too surprisingly with the losses from Saran and several other testing races encountered, the numbers both in the NCC (and also at the BICC Ringstead marking) were well down on expectations, with 10 NCC members finding 52 pigeons for this 400 mile race. One often reads how race controllers have an unenviable job, and John Tyerman race controller for the BICC has certainly been tested this year with his decision making. One also has to remember that weather forecasting is just exactly that - a forecast - and you only have to watch the BCC weather forecasting on TV against the regional or local station to realise that nothing is absolute. The Midland National, where many of Northamptonshire fanciers had sent their pigeons were at Alencon, around 140 miles shorter than Poitiers, and they held their birds until 9.30, because of low cloud and drizzle. I had an ‘e’-mail kindly sent from Richard Boylin living in the Vendee, more or less between the two race points confirming the weather and at 9.15 am o the Saturday morning he stated “it is a beautiful sunny morning since around 6 0clock this morning.....wind is all over the place ,not strong, at this moment it is SOUTH EAST ,but I see up at Nantes it is NORTH and up over the Channel it looks the same.....so a tough but good race is forecast!! Thanks for that Richard; you’ll soon be in demand as a line of flight individual. The BICC let our birds go at 9.00, and to prove the weather was acceptable the MNFC let go at 9.30, and NCC members anticipated probably an eleven hour fly. I must admit bias as I won the NCC and took provisionally 4th Open National but equally must admit to finding it very hard to report on my own race positions so will move swiftly on. There were only five day birds into Northamptonshire, those belonging to Graham Groom (second) who timed at 8.45; Andy Smith (third) who timed at eight minutes to nine; Mel Errington (fourth) at six minutes to nine; and I had a second bird in the fading light at almost quarter past nine. Some of the birds couldn’t have been too far away over night with the first timings on Sunday before 6.00 am. Many will say another tough race but no race at 400 miles and over is ever an easy one, and if the season continues in the same vein then our last race from Bordeaux will really sort the men from the boys.
Our second race on the program across the Channel was from Alencon with the BICC, and the birds were held until 10.00 and released into another head wind, backing north-west, so a steady fly was on the cards for around 270 miles. The ever-present Andy Smith took first and third on 1274 & 1227 with Barry and Troy Hobbs splitting him for second on 1249. Albert Farrow clocked just after six and a half hours to take fourth. The club purchased new software to produce the race result from Paul O’Leary at the beginning of the season and an aspect that has caught everybody’s interest, is the column calculating the time by which every member on the result has been beaten by the winner. It adds a whole new characteristic to viewing the result, and instead of members saying I’ve been beaten by (say) 25 yards; it’s now “I’ve been beaten by one minute and seventeen seconds”. The clubs next Channel race was the disastrous Saran race with the BICC on May 30th, although the velocities told only part of the story. Andy Smith sent 23 pigeons of the clubs total entry of 123 birds and was the only member to clock day birds on velocities of 967 & 933 to take first and second club. The “beaten/by column” on the result then showed a three hour gap to Graham Caple taking third next morning on 739, with Jan Czarnota in fourth with his turned north road first bird on 698. From 123 birds just 14 birds or 11% finished up on the result; the majority timed on the second day with the last four places filled with velocities of 513; 477; 396 & 395, which just about sums up how disastrous this race was. Of the 14 birds on the result 7 pigeons took more than 16 hours to complete the 320/330 mile course. Without wishing to particularly highlight any other race reports, I will however comment on a personal basis that I find press coverage stating merely that “it turned out to be a hard race” without acknowledging huge losses and giving due explanation and proper coverage of the reasons for such an unmitigated smash, as doing very little indeed on the PR front. Every club at what-ever level will from time to time experience difficult and hard races, but when many thousands of birds go missing, as happened with the MNFC YB race last year, it should become a responsibility of the clubs management to investigate; not to necessarily lay blame at anyone’s door, but certainly at the very least discover a valid and viable reason for the cause and then communicate it to the members. Is not the Government (and every other body in authority), constantly telling us that “lessons are to be learnt” from what-ever the transgression of the moment might be, and yet pigeon racing seems incapable of learning from its mistakes. Communicating the lessons learnt, surely is the only way to try and engender some trust and create goodwill for the future, whereas hoping a bad race will soon be forgotten simply doesn’t work. Having got that off my chest I’ll sit back and wait for the onslaught of response.
The NCC had three training races with the first in mid May at Littlehampton. 10 members sent 193 birds with Peter Chamberlain claiming a close run race, by one yard (or 7 seconds) on 1430 from Russell & Clare Bradford in the next three slots. We then visited Portsmouth with 111 birds from 8 members, and Rodney Oakes of ‘Rock-&-Roll’ fame took first and second from Pete Chamberlain in third and fourth with velocities spread across 1371 to 1337 representing just two and a half minutes. A short trainer back at Newbury with 9 sending 146 birds saw Andy Smith taking top spot, and had he not done so, Pete Chamberlain would have claimed all the podium places. The penultimate Channel race on the club’s program was from Poitiers on June 12th, and not too surprisingly with the losses from Saran and several other testing races encountered, the numbers both in the NCC (and also at the BICC Ringstead marking) were well down on expectations, with 10 NCC members finding 52 pigeons for this 400 mile race. One often reads how race controllers have an unenviable job, and John Tyerman race controller for the BICC has certainly been tested this year with his decision making. One also has to remember that weather forecasting is just exactly that - a forecast - and you only have to watch the BCC weather forecasting on TV against the regional or local station to realise that nothing is absolute. The Midland National, where many of Northamptonshire fanciers had sent their pigeons were at Alencon, around 140 miles shorter than Poitiers, and they held their birds until 9.30, because of low cloud and drizzle. I had an ‘e’-mail kindly sent from Richard Boylin living in the Vendee, more or less between the two race points confirming the weather and at 9.15 am o the Saturday morning he stated “it is a beautiful sunny morning since around 6 0clock this morning.....wind is all over the place ,not strong, at this moment it is SOUTH EAST ,but I see up at Nantes it is NORTH and up over the Channel it looks the same.....so a tough but good race is forecast!! Thanks for that Richard; you’ll soon be in demand as a line of flight individual. The BICC let our birds go at 9.00, and to prove the weather was acceptable the MNFC let go at 9.30, and NCC members anticipated probably an eleven hour fly. I must admit bias as I won the NCC and took provisionally 4th Open National but equally must admit to finding it very hard to report on my own race positions so will move swiftly on. There were only five day birds into Northamptonshire, those belonging to Graham Groom (second) who timed at 8.45; Andy Smith (third) who timed at eight minutes to nine; Mel Errington (fourth) at six minutes to nine; and I had a second bird in the fading light at almost quarter past nine. Some of the birds couldn’t have been too far away over night with the first timings on Sunday before 6.00 am. Many will say another tough race but no race at 400 miles and over is ever an easy one, and if the season continues in the same vein then our last race from Bordeaux will really sort the men from the boys.
The Northamptonshire Championship Club is very lucky to be the recipient of a generous club benefactor, who has paid for breathable rain-deflecting side curtains to be added to the club’s trailer, and my photo is of Mel Errington, the club’s President with drill in hand attaching the fixings. He simply refused to be distracted by my poking a camera at him. Young Bird racing isn’t that far off and the Championship club is running a YB program to:- twice Newbury and three times Portsmouth with as many birds as you wish to send for just £25.00. Perhaps I should put that in words rather than figures in case you think there’s a misprint, so send as many birds as you want for a one-off payment of twenty five pounds, to all five race points with us, and you don’t need to be an NCC member although of course you will not appear on any club race result if you aren’t one. For that price you are probably saying “who cares”. All these races will be on Sundays and kick-off is on July 25th.