“ON THE ROAD” WITH KEITH MOTT  

Godalming Prize Presentation 2006

The Godalming & Dist. F.C. is very well looked after at its wonderful H.Q, Shackleford Social Club, and held its annual prize giving there recently. I was invited along to present the trophies to members and I must say it was a great honor and pleasure, as I consider this great club to be one of the very best in our sport.  My good friend, Peter Taylor, came along with me and being a member of the Guildford club he was asked to present the Godalming / Guildford Inter Club trophy to the Godalming membership who won it in the 2006 season. About 80 people enjoyed the wonderful buffet put on by Sue Durrant and her mother, and the evening turned out to be one of the best pigeon social occasions of the year.

Club chairman, Alan Austin, made a short speech thanking every one for attending. Alan is a very nice gentleman, held in very high regard in the Godalming Club, for his relentless hard work. Vince Durrant, the club President, read out the prize list and in his speech thanked all the many good workers for the club, including George and Ann Gelder, the previous club secretaries who had to retire at the end of old bird racing in the 2006 season. There son, Luke, is another wonderful worker for the Godalming club and he was also given a special ‘thank you’. There was also a vote of thanks to Mick Tuck the club's present hard-working secretary.

The Godalming club has a wonderful array of 55 racing trophies and eight show trophies. Premier prizewinners were: Mr.  & Mrs. Vince Durrant & sons, Darran & Des McFadden, Ray Hammond, Mick Tuck, Pete Fyfield, Mike Armitage, R. & W. Gelder, D. Robinson, Paul Bridgewater and Tony Baughen won the ‘Doug Cox Coronation Cup’ for best novice performance in the club in the 2006 season.

Vince and Sue Durrant with their two sons, Jack and Sam, were the club’s premier prize winners this season and Vince travels a lot with his work and says he owes much of his success to his family, as they do a lot of work with the pigeons when he is on the road. Needless to say, the Durrant family are great workers in the Godalming pigeon fraternity.

Vince Durrant has won the S.M.T. Combine twice in recent years and has excelled at the long distance events, since coming into the sport over 40 years ago. He has been a long time member of the Godalming club and has been a great worker for the club over many years. The last S.M.T. Combine old bird race of 1986, was the Blue Riband event from Bergerac (450 miles) and it saw Vince Durrant win 1st Combine with 2,439 birds competing. The Combine winner was his two year old Louella bred mealy cock 'The 62 Cock' which was raced widowhood. For the first S.M.T. Combine race of the 1987 season members sent 3,929 birds to Rennes (220 miles) and Vince won the Combine for the second time with a red chequer son of ' The 62 Cock'. Vince thought the 1986 Bergerac race was his best to date recording 1st, 5th & 8th club, 1st Surrey Federation, 1st S.M.T. Combine, winning several highly rated trophies. Another outstanding performance in 1986 was 8th Section E, 21st Open Pau (N.F.C.) recorded by his two year old blue pied hen '05', which also recorded 7th Open Tours (B.B.C.) in 1986. The Durrant loft also won 1st & 2nd Open Tours in 1986, and recorded nine of 15 entries in the Rennes young bird National on the day, winning 30th, 90th, 141st, 240th, 262nd, 282nd & 349th Open. Brilliant pigeon flying!

Vince has kept pigeons for over 40 years, starting at the age of 11 with a pair of Ron Dodd of Shalford pigeons, which turned out to be two hens. Three Guildford North Road fanciers gave Vince a lot of help when he started, they were three brothers who all raced separately, Bert, Charlie & Doug Webster. Vince played a lot of football up to a few years ago, but now plays quite a lot of squash. He is also a keen fisherman. His first club was the now defunct Guildford North Road club and he won the odd card racing from the north. Other fanciers who have helped Vince since were Ron & Chris Cox of Farncombe who have supplied the majority of his stock, and have helped by taking his birds for marking. Vince's wife, Sue, is the grandaughter of late Godalming 'ace' Stan Edgington and Vince raced his pigeons to Stan's back garden for many years.

Godalming & Dist R.P.C. has a long history of top quality fanciers going back to the 1920s, with well-known names of the time, such as H. H. Boshier, the mayor of Godalming, winner of 1938: 4th Open Marande, 1939: 2nd Open Marande; Mr. Raynesford winner of 2nd Open San Sebastian in 1935 and Seaman Bros. 2nd Open Marande in 1937. Other top long distance fanciers in Godalming in those early days were C. R. Gush and the great Harold Edgington. Harold was the father of the late Stan Edgington who unfortu­nately passed away early in 1995, and who made a huge contribu­tion to pigeon racing locally and was a great loss to the club. The club has strong ties with the NFC, as a clock station, and the home of well over twenty 1st Section winners in Sections A. and E. Modern-day National winners in Godalming Club are: Paul & Arthur Bridgewater, lst Open Nantes N.F.C. and Eric & Pat Cannon, lst Open Sartilly N.F.C. and a wonderful 16 times lst Section. Other Classic organiza­tions are also well supported by club members, including B.B.C, L.& S.E.C.C. and the B.I.C.C.

The club is a long-time member of Surrey Federation and is one of its largest clubs, with Godalming members winning a long line of lst Open S.M.T. Combines and Federation wins through the years. Racing in Godalming is always very competitive with many well-known fanciers competing most weeks. There are about 50 members and a very large radius of ten miles from Godalming Station, with members flying to locations as far apart as Headley Down, Farnham, Farnborough, Woking, Cranleigh, and Wormley. The club has its own small transporter holding up to 640 birds, which members some times use for training. Affairs are very ably run by current secretary Micky Tuck.

In my 35 years as a pigeon racer, I’ve had a good and long association with the Godalming club and must say, I’ve always rated it as one of the strongest and best outfits ever. It has a marvellous tradition of producing great fancier and I would think their record of Federation, Combine and National winning lofts over the years would take some beating. A quality run club, with a quality membership! The latest ‘young gun’ to hit the headlines in the Godalming club is Darran McFadden, who has his loft in the leafy Surrey village of Cranleigh. Darran has only been in the sport a few years, but has set the Godalming club alight in recent seasons, with his latest achievement being 1st. open S.M.T. Combine Yelverton, in the first Combine race of the 2006 season. The McFadden’s winning pigeon was their little widowhood blue pied hen, ‘Sparrow’, named because of her size and her nest mate was 2nd. club to her from Yelverton (175 miles). The parents of this great nest pair are two of the McFadden’s premier stock birds, in the form of; ‘The Meuleman Cock’ and ‘Chloe’s Girl’ and both these pigeons were outstanding racers before being put in the stock sections. Another outstanding yearling this season for the Cranleigh loft is the blue hen, ‘The Jealous Hen’, and she has won two races from Portland and Kingsdown on the widowhood system.  

Darran McFadden flies in partnership with his father, Des, and their loft is at their home in Cranleigh. Back around 1983, Des, flew pigeons for a couple of seasons, but due to working shifts in the Police Force he found that he could not give the birds the time that they deserved. Darran was only eleven years of age so could not race on his own, but even when Des packed up the pigeons he would still go over to Godalming pigeon club with his uncle, Pat McFadden, who was the secretary at the time. Darran told me, there were loads of great fanciers in that club at that time, not that he knew just how good they were, as he was just a young lad. Great fanciers like Eric Cannon, Arthur and Paul Bridgewater, Stan Edgington, Alec Martin, Ron Cox and even then though listening to all the pigeon banter on a Saturday night, he reckons he had the pigeon racing bug. In 1999 his mum and dad bought the pet shop (Pets Pantry) in Cranleigh, from where many fanciers in the area bought there corn. The late great Eric Cannon of Wormley was one of these fanciers and any time he visited the shop, when Darran was there, he would ask if he had convinced the ‘old fella’ to start pigeons again. His reply always being, ‘not yet, but soon I hope’. Darran had always had the intention of starting up in pigeons again but he was not quite sure when that was going to be.

The 2002 season was their first old bird season and for the main channel team they raced natural, but did try a team of Widowhood cocks for some of the shorter races. Darran didn't really like this system as I felt it was wasting some good hens, even though it did bring them some good positions in the club racing this way. So from then on the McFadden’s raced natural only even for the inland programme. Once they got across the water they more than held their own, but inland even though they did pick up a few cards, they felt that they lacked those few extra yards. In 2005 Darran decided that he wanted to try a team of Widowers not just for the inland programme but also for the B.I.C.C. Nationals to see how they compared against his channel pigeons. So he set up a small loft around the side of his stock loft, away from the main team to experiment with and so they would be undisturbed. He felt that this time however, it would be a total widowhood method with the emphasis being on the hens. The rest is history, with many prizes won, including 1st. open Combine. Darran recently won both classes at an open Godalming show I judged and his pigeon were in wonderful condition, a real credit to him!

In the 2006 season the S.M.T. Combine sent 1,012 birds to Bergerac, in south west France, for it’s longest old bird race. With very high temperatures and a stiff north east wind, the pigeons encountered one of the hardest Bergerac (450 miles) races ever, and certainly the hardest event of the 2006 season. Only five game pigeons were clocked on the day of liberation, with only two making over 900 y.p.m. and both theses were at the Godalming club in the Surrey Federation. The club’s hard working secretary, Mick Tuck clocked two on the day of liberation and had five in the Combine result. Brilliant pigeon racing!  Mick’s 2nd. open Combine Bergerac winner was a natural yearling blue chequer hen and she was sent to Bergerac paired to another yearling hen and sitting four eggs. He has named her, ‘Tucky’s Supreme’, and she is bred from the very best of Eric Cannon’s long distance blood lines and her dam is the champion racing hen, “Tucky’s Delight”, and winner of 4th. club, 6th. Surrey Federation, 7th. S.M.T. Combine Bergerac, 1st. club, 2nd. Surrey Federation, 6th. S.M.T. Combine Alencon, 1st. club, 5th. Surrey Federation, 19th. S.M.T. Combine Bergerac, 51st. open L.& S.E.C.C. San Sebastian, 17th. section A, 102nd. open N.F.C. Tarbes (550 miles on the day of liberation.) A brilliant hen! The Tuck loft had very little racing in the 2006 season, but chalked up: 2nd, 5th, 18th, 19th, 21st. open SMT Combine Bergerac (438 miles), 117th, 430th, 470th. open N.F.C. Bordeaux Grand National and won the first three young bird races in the very strong Godalming club.

Godalming club member, Ray Hammond of Albury, near Guildford, won the Combine from Bergerac, doing 954 y.p.m. with his good yearling blue cock, ‘Simply Wonderful’, and he was sent to Bergerac sitting seven day old eggs. This game cock had three inland races on his build up to the Bergerac race and took two weeks to come home from the Truro Combine event. When I asked Ray about his build up, he said, ‘I think he went to Ireland on his way home from Truro, as on his return he had Shamrock between his toes and he was singing, ‘It’s along way from Tipperary’. His sire is an Eric Cannon / Tom Gilbertson cross and has been in the clock many times on the long distance, including being first bird clocked from the L.& S.E.C.C. Bergerac race, on the same weekend as when he won the Combine. The grandsire of ‘Simply Wonderful’ won Bergerac twice in the old Dorking club. I handled the Bergerac Combine winner two days after he won and I noticed how well he was feathered, being nice and silky, and was half way up on his second flight.

Ray Hammond is one of the ‘all time greats’ of long distance racing in the Surrey area, having put up many outstanding performances over many years and has won the longest old bird race in the London & South East Classic Club three times, including 1st. open Pau (550 miles) in 2005. His Pau Classic winner was the dark cock, ‘Simply The Best’, and he is a firm favourite at the Albury loft, and now resides in the stock loft. Again, the 2005 Pau Classic was a very hard race and he won it well, being only the fourth race of his life. ‘Simply The Best’ was a latebred youngster in 2003 and had no racing as a young bird or yearling. I handled this great pigeon recently and I must say he was a perfect long distance type, being long cast in the hand, with very good silky feathering. A wonderful pigeon!

Ray races 15 pairs on the natural system, with the long distance events in mind, and pairs up in mid-February. He likes to get the youngsters weaned before the old birds start training, but stressed to me that he trained very little, with the race team getting only four tosses through to Petersfield (30 miles) this season. Ray is only interested in the long distance, but says his birds need the distance on a hard day to do well, as recent races from Pau and Bergerac have proved. Ray’s Bergerac win is the second S.M.T. Combine winner in the very strong Godalming club in the 2006 season, with Darran and Des McFadden topping the Combine from Yelverton. He told me he couldn’t keep up with the young ‘hot shots’ like Darren on the sprint races, but likes to send to those inland races to get the birds race fit. The main families kept are Eric Cannon, through Ron Dodd of Selsey, and Malcolm Parker has let Ray have some good long distance bloodlines, including the best of Tom Gilbertson. He told me he has had some very good results with sending pigeons to the distance races feeding a two day old youngster, but says every pigeon is an individual with different fades and the fancier must find out, in which nest condition each individual performs best. Ray is a heavy feeder and gives all the birds ‘Cranleigh Number 1” mixture all the year round. He de-worms twice a year and some times puts a little cod liver oil on the mixture. The old birds go through to Pau (550 miles) and he is a great believer in testing pigeons, so also sends a few yearlings to the south of France race point.

Ray Hammond’s record in the long distance races over many years is second to none, winning: 1st. open L.& S.E.C.C. Dax (twice), 3rd. open L.& S.E.C.C. Dax, 5th. open L.& S.E.C.C. Dax, 1st. open L.&S.E.C.C. Pau, 6th. open L.&S.E.C.C. Pau, 9th. open L.& S.E.C.C. Pau, 1st. section, 2nd. open B.B.C. Palamos (665 miles), 2nd. open B.B.C. Barcelona (685 miles), 3rd. open B.B.C. Barcelona, 5th. open B.B.C. Barcelona, 1st. section B.B.C. Nantes, 1st. section, 2nd. open B.B.C. Tours (only four birds home on the day of liberation), 2nd. open B.I.C.C. Perpignan, 19th. open N.F.C. Pau, 36th. open N.F.C. Pau and has won Bergerac at club level four times. A fantastic loft performance in the very best competition.

Many thanks to Godalming Club for a wonderful evening! That’s your ‘ON THE ROAD’ article for this week. I can be contacted on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT. 

5/12/06