Godalming Prize Presentation 2007

by Keith Mott

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.

The Godalming pigeon club is very well looked after at its wonderful H.Q, Shackleford Social Club, and held its annual prize giving there recently. Peter Notridge, president of the Surrey Federation was invited along to present the trophies to members and he was accompanied by his son, Lee. I consider this great club to be one of the very best in our sport and once again they enjoyed a great season in the Federation and Combine in 2007. 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. 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: Darran & Des McFadden (13 trophies), Mr.  & Mrs. Vince Durrant & sons (11 trophies), Tony Baughen (7 trophies), Mick Tuck (5 trophies), R. & W. Gelder (4 trophies), Wally Cable (4 trophies), Pete Fyfield (3 trophies), Mike Armitage (1 trophy), A. Muir (1 trophy) and Paul Bridgewater (1 trophy).

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 and his father, Des, were the club’s premier prize winners in 2007, winning a wonderful list of position in the Surrey Federation and SMT Combine. Darren tells me his best pigeon in the 2007 season was his three year old blue Staf Van Reet hen, ‘71807’, and she recorded: 1st club, 1st Surrey Federation Portland, 1st club, 12th Surrey Federation Truro, 2nd club Portland, 4th club Portland, 83rd open BICC Falaise (2627 birds), 193rd open BICC Alencon (4658 birds), 329th open BICC Falaise (3473 birds) and 531st open BICC Falaise (4294 birds). A brilliant 2007 performance! The McFadden’s enjoyed a great season at both Federation and National levels, winning 44 positions in the Godalming club, including 5 firsts, 1st Surrey Federation (twice) and a list of excellent performances in the NFC, BICC and L&SECC, including 14th, 29th and 58th open L&SECC Pau (recording the three birds on the day of liberation). In my opinion, Darran and Des’ best performance of the season was winning the L&SECC Diploma of Merit with their good white hen, ‘Cameron’s Snow Queen’, when she was clocked on the day to complete her trio of positions in the first 50 open, 19th, 39th and 29th open. A great hen!  

Darran has only been in the sport a few years, but has set the Godalming club alight in recent seasons, with his 2006 achievement of 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 that 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. Last winter Darran won both classes at an open Godalming show I judged and his pigeon were in wonderful condition, a real credit to him!

Vince and Sue Durrant with their two sons, Jack and Sam, were the club’s second highest 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.

Last winter I reported that Tony Baughen of Liphook had won the ‘Novice Trophy’ in the Godalming club and this year he is third highest prize winner, and hit the jackpot by winning 1st open SMT Combine Poitiers. His winner was a yearling Huybreght blue chequer hen, bred by Tommy Powell of Whitehill and she was sent sitting 14 day old eggs at basketing. Two weeks prior to his Combine win he was 1st, 2nd and 4th club Massac and his Poitiers winner recorded 4th club. A game little hen! He trains most days out of Hayling Island, which is about 28 miles from his loft, and is 100% a natural racer.

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. 

31/12/07