Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past and present...

CRAMMOND AND LANGSTAFF OF FONTWELL

The fantastic racing partnership of Ian Crammond and Nigel Langstaff have enjoyed yet another wonderful season in 2009 racing in the Federation, Classic and National. Racing in a Newton Abbott young bird race in August, the partners think they might have created a record in the Solent Federation, when they recorded: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 26th, 30th, 33rd, 34th, 36th, 38th open, with 2,638 birds competing. That brilliant performance from Newton Abbott was only the tip of the ice burg as far as their 2009 racing success was concerned winning 17 time 1st club and 6 times 1st Federation. The Federation wins in 2009 were very impressive, with good birdage and include: 1st, 2nd South Coast Federation (2,427 birds) Kingsdown, with the Federation winner being a blue Vandenabeele widowhood cock and brother to 1st sect A. NFC Fougeres in 2009. The partner’s good widowhood blue cock, ‘The Tours Cock’, which I photographed in 2008 after he had won 3rd open L&SECC Tours, recorded 1st South Coast Federation Exeter in 2009 and he was competing against 2,204 birds. Another blue Vandenabeele widowhood cock won the South Coast Federation when Ian and Nigel took the first three positions from Exeter, with 2,274 birds taking part and he was the son of 1st sect F. NFC Guernsey Young Bird National in 2002. The partners won 1st Federation from Kingsdown twice and these were both Kees Bosua widowhood cocks.

Ian Crammond’ good friend of many years standing is John Tyerman of Bracklesham Bay and he is one of the proprietors of the McGee / Tyerman Barcelona Challenge Lofts, sited in the little farming village of Hernicourt, in Northern France. This area of France is a hot bed of pigeon racing, being near the town of St. Pol in the Nord Pas Calais Region, about a one hour drive south of Calais and many premier International positions have been won locally. A perfect place to race pigeons! The loft location is 630 miles from Barcelona and was set up two years ago by John McGee and John Tyerman with sole intention of competing in International races. The birds are raced on the round about system and about 80 two year pigeons set up and sent the Barcelona International in the 2009 season. Crammond & Langstaff had nine birds in that team which sent to that first Barcelona race and had six clocked to record 1st, 5th, 13th, 26th and 35th. The first bird home from Barcelona was a Van Helmond / Wim Muller (Jan Aarden based) blue chequer hen and she figured high in the International result. A wonderful performance!

Once again the Fontwell partnership had brilliant season racing in the National Flying Club and London & South East Classic Club in 2009 winning: 2nd, 3rd sect A, 5th, 11th open NFC Alencon (7,476 birds), 8th sect A, 86th open NFC Tarbes (3,800 birds), 1st, 2nd sect A, 4th, 8th open NFC Saintes (4.477 birds), 1st sect A, 35th open NFC Fougeres Young Bird National (5,440 birds), 3rd, 5th sect, 7th, 11th open L&SECC Tarbes. Two 1st section A. winners in the National Flying Club in one season is an absolutely brilliant performance! The NFC Saintes section winner was yet another blue widowhood cock, with his sire being a son of the Crammond & Langstaff number one stock pair and his dam was a top young bird racer, winning 7th open BBC Lamballe. The 2009 NFC Fougeres section winner was yet another of their wonderful Gaby Vandenabeele pigeons, this time it was a blue hen, sent to the young bird National playing around with a young cock in a nest box. A pigeon worthy of a very special mention is their good Eric Cannon mealy cock, ‘JT’, and in 2009 he won 10th open BBC Barcelona (665 miles) and two week later went back to Narbonne (559 miles) to record 10th open in the International open race. This wonderful old cock was bred by John Tyerman and has won a long list of outstanding prizes in long distance events over the years. He had flown Tarbes (550 miles) twice, being clocked on the day of liberation with the L&SECC and was clocked from Perpignan, too complete 2,000 miles racing in the 2008 season.

Ian Crammond has been in the sport 60 years and has won it all in that time including three times 1st open L&SECC, 1st open BICC and 1st section in the NFC several times. He tells me the partners have several families going well at the present time including the M. & D. Evans / Vandenabeele, Peter Van Osch and Emil Dennys. He has had his present loft set up at Fontwell about 15 years and has taken Nigel on as a full pigeon partner in recent seasons. Ian can’t praise Nigel enough, saying he is first class pigeon man and is mostly responsible for their outstanding racing success in the 2008 /9 seasons.  Ian likes the continental families of pigeons, with going over to Belgium and Holland obtaining top class birds being a big part of his hobby, which he joys as he has made some good friends of fanciers from over the English Channel. When he goes out to obtain new stock he always goes to lofts that are winning consistently with very big birdage in the National and Combine races. Ian says years ago he enjoyed long distance racing and did not mind waiting several days to clock a bird from Spain, but these days he only likes one day racing, up to about 550 miles.

The partners race 120 cocks on the widowhood system and these racers are split in to two teams, one for sprint to middle distance and the other for long distance. The racers are not broke down, being fed on a good widowhood mixture and the two teams are trained separate and flown out around the loft separate. Nigel likes racing out to places like Bordeaux and Saintes, but his ambition is to win 550 miles National race. The partner’s long distance loft is the focal centre of the magnificent set up and Ian calls it ‘master control’. It is about 50ft long, with a corridor where the birds trap into off landing boards and all the nest boxes are self cleaning, with the fronts being colour coded to each section. The loft has a closed in front with Perspex windows, an office to keep all pigeon records, a roomy full length flight at the rear for the widowhood hens and all clocking is on ETS. Ian says the long distance loft is the product of many year of work altering it to get it right. The sprinting widowhood cocks are housed in 50ft loft with a pan tiled roof, open door trapping and is totally closed in. Ian’s pride and joy is his magnificent stock loft and flights, which house over 100 pairs of breeders that have been obtained from the very best continental champions over the years. The partners like to pair the stock birds up early in the year and each family has it own section in the loft.

The 2008 L&SECC Bergerac race was won by the very successful south coast loft of Ian Crammond & Nigel Langstaff and to say the partners had a good season in 2008 would be an under statement, winning many premier positions right threw from Federation to National level, including: 1st open L&SECC Bergerac, 2nd open NFC Angers, 3rd L&SECC Tours and 4th open BBC Bordeaux. Brilliant pigeon racing! Ian and Nigel recorded their third L&SECC win in mid-July 2008 and about two weeks after the event, Peter Taylor and I picked a nice summer’s day to make the 60 miles drive down to Fontwell to see the Bergerac winning pigeon. Ian Crammond is famous in the pigeon racing fraternity for his wonderful loft set which is sited on his rare breeds farm near Fontwell Race Course, just a couple of miles from Bognor, on the south coast. I have visited the farm many times over the years, but never tire of viewing the partner’s great lofts and pigeons. The partner’s Bergerac Classic winner was their three year old champion Vandenabeele blue chequer cock, ‘Crackerjack’ and he is a M. & D. Evans pigeon, being a grandson of ‘Eisenhower’. Nigel told me he is named ‘Crackerjack’ because he crackers and is very mad around the loft. After being clocked on the day to win the L&SECC Bergerac race in 2008, he was sent back to the NFC race from Saintes (353 miles) and recorded 3rd section A, 84th open. ‘Crackerjack’ had the best velocity of the six organizations (3,442 birds) liberate off the CSCFC transporter at Bergerac that day and won the RPRA Southern Region Award for best individual performance up to 450 miles. He is bred from a long line of good winning pigeons and his full brother won 1st section NFC St. Malo. Another premier racer at the Fontwell loft is: ‘The Van Osch Cock’ – This wonderful six year old blue chequer cock looked and handled like a show pigeon, with beautiful feather, balance in the hand and pearl eye. The Van Osch pigeons are a Dutch family, being Janssen based and are winning well for Ian and Nigel. This widowhood cock recently won 1st open BICC Exeter (1966 birds).

Ian and Nigel breed about 300 youngsters every season and sell 100 of them, with the rest being retained for racing. They are all put on the ‘dark’ system and raced natural to the perch. The young bird loft is 40ft long, with open door trapping and on race days the birds go down to a small door at low level, so they can be registered on the ETS system. If the weather is good the babies are trained from Southampton, which is a 40 minute fly, five days a week and are raced out the longest NFC and BBC young bird race points. The partners don’t break the youngsters down and feed them the same widowhood mixture as the old birds. Nigel tells me he used to enjoy only old bird racing, but these days seems to enjoy his young bird racing more.

Well that it for this week! I would like to congratulate Ian Crammond and Nigel Langstaff on their wonderful success in the 2009 season. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOPS BY KEITH MOTT.