Keith Mott's

Tribute to the late Dr. Ralph Iley CBE, past President of the U.N.C.

The sport of pigeon racing recently lost one of its best ever fanciers when the great Dr. Ralph Iley passed away, at the age of 83. I had the great pleasure of meeting Ralph several times through the years and visited his loft in the mid-1990s, with ‘Many Miles with Mott’ video team. He loved the sport and even after so many year racing pigeons, he always seemed to have the enthusiasm of a new starter. Ralph is famous for the good work he did in the sport, especially for his beloved Up North Combine. Another legend has left our sport! Condolences to his family at this very sad time.

Ralph had been president of the Up North Combine for well over 30 years, and said he had seen a lot of changes in our sport in that time. When visiting his loft a few years ago he told me he thought the main progression had been going over to the road transporter, since which the Up North Combine has never once failed to get all the birds to the racepoint, at that time. This is a fantastic achievement when you realise that on some Up North Combine races there are 15 road transporters and over 20,000 birds taking part. Ralph also told me that the Up North Combine is a limited company and has a wonderful team of workers behind it.

Ralph built his first loft as a schoolboy in 1939, and joined the Percy Main Club, and his first pigeons were obtained from his later-to-be father-in-law. He liked the middle to long-distance races, but had won his fair share of sprints and had been 2nd Open Up North Combine a fantastic seven times through the years, although he had never won the Combine. In 1991 he was 2nd Open Up North Combine in three races on the trot, from 360 miles through to 580 miles. A wonderful performance by a brilliant fancier!

On my visit to his loft, Ralph showed me his wonderful widowhood blue pied cock which had won 2nd Open Up North Combine Clermont (20,000 birds) in 1991, bred off Ralph's old Channel family. Ralph raced both widowhood and natural, but had never won a 600-mile race with a widowhood cock. His loft housed 90 widowhood cocks split into three teams, as Ralph raced in four clubs. He started to pair up his widowhood cocks during the second week in January, each team being paired up at a different time, at two-week intervals. The cocks raced at the beginning of the season and were put on widowhood after about four races. The reason Ralph liked widowhood was because you don't have to train the cocks; he said he had never trained a widowhood pigeon in the 18 years he had used the system.

KEITH MOTT.