L&SECC FORUM WITH KEITH MOTT

London & South East Classic Club News

It’s the end of season and quite rightly there is a lot of ‘thank you’ flying around! One very important ‘thank you’ which seems to be over looked is to our brilliant secretary, Terri Hoskin! So the President would like to thank her on behalf of the membership for the wonderful job she has done in the 2010 season. Our Terri ‘baby’ and I have become good friends working together this season and now we are one year on from her being ‘thrown in at the deep end’, she has moved closer to being one of the best secretaries we have had at the L&SECC. She is a full time mum to her two girls, Sian aged 9 and Rhianna aged 13, a part time worker and still managed to do a brilliant job for us at the London Classic. Thanks to our marking station I/Cs, Bob Alty, Alan Cecil, Brian Doick and Derek Packer, and all their helpers. They all did a brilliant job! The bad news is Bob Alty is packing up as I/C, after many years of devoted service to our Classic Club and the Stevenage marking and clock station is closing down for the 2011 season. Really bad news for our members up in Hertfordshire!

It was a shock to get the phone call informing me of the sad passing of one of the sports great workers, Cyril Howes of Gravesend. He sadly passed away suddenly on Saturday 18th September. He was the I/C of the London & South East Classic Club Gravesend marking and clock station for many years and ran it with great perfection. It was only this April that he inform our committee that he had to retire from his post through ill health and I personally wrote to him to thank him and tell him he had done a sterling job and would be greatly missed. Cyril was a regular write in the fancy press for many years and penned many premier articles over recent decades as the ‘Silver Fox’. He enjoyed his big involvement in the sport, but was also an outstanding pigeon racer and won many times 1st Federation and 1st open Combine through the years. I’m told he was a winner right up to the end, winning the Federation in the 2010 season!

The Leatherhead marking station is our biggest venue and probably processes the largest amount of birds in the course of the season. Terri ‘baby’ has the marking station running like clock work and on every race this season Steve Appleby and Peter Taylor have turned up and marked all the rubbered pigeons. You can imagine the amount of ETS pigeons that have to be processed on the two systems at Leatherhead, but this massive operation has been super smooth this season, thanks to our two resident experts, Ken Wise and Tony Dann. Thanks to you all!  

2010 L&SECC Guernsey Classic (2).

The last London & South East Classic Club race of the 2010 season from Guernsey proved to be yet another difficult race for the 1,200 young bird and old hens, which had to battle home in head winds. This last classic of the season was a carbon copy of most of which went on before, with northerly winds prevailing nearly every weekend and producing one of the hardest seasons we have every experienced. Losses have been very heavy this year and the babies even seem to have bad races on good days! The convoy was held over, with the winning pigeon flying in to Essex and only recording 1249ypm.

The Essex partnership of Dave and Gary Heywood won the young bird classic with a darkness Van Der Mere / Kees Bousa hen sitting ten day old eggs and she was bred by John Gerrard. Dave tells me his young birds this year have been coming great and have taken some premier prizes, including in the NFC young bird National race. The Laindon partnership have won many major positions in National and Classic racing through the years and have won the British International Championship Club three times, including twice 1st open National in one season. The father and son pigeon partners won 1st open BICC Bihorel in 2002, 1st open BICC Falaise and 1st open BICC Tours, both in the 2003 season. Dave and Gary also won the L&SECC Tours yearling derby in 2002 and put the icing on the cake, of a brilliant season.

Dave Heywood had his first pair of pigeons when he was five years of age, being a gift from his uncle who kept tumblers and fantails. He says as a youngster he was interested in football and tells me Gary is a very good footballer, as well as being a major part of the pigeon racing partnership. Dave was born in south London and started racing pigeons in 1968, winning his first race from Newark in 1971. His first loft was a 12ft.x 5ft. open fronted structure, and he raced in the Old Pride of Laindon club. He says his biggest mistake in the early days was overfeeding and overcrowding his small loft. Dave says the late, Tommy Tomkins, was a great help to him and he obtained some outstanding Savage / Barker pigeons from him to start off his racing. The Heywood's brought in the Bill Growden Busschaerts in 1982 and won 1st open London N.R. Combine Stockton (young birds), with them in the 1990 season. The Laindon loft has always been successful on the north road, but turned around south several years ago. Dave is only interested in channel racing and maintains that on the north road old birds can fly the programme, but on the south, pigeons can't race every week and fanciers have to pick their races and save the birds.

The Heywood's loft is a 48ft. continental style structure, with six sections, tiled roof and open windows trapping. Dave maintains the most important factor behind good loft design is dryness and says pigeons don't like draughts. He likes deep litter on the loft floors, having tried it several times, but it makes him chesty, with the dust. Dave and Gary race 34 cocks on the widowhood system and say theirs is a dry system, as the cocks don't rear youngsters at the beginning of the season. They are paired up the second week in February and after sitting eggs for ten days are parted for a month and re-paired to sit the second round of eggs for four days, before going on the widowhood system to start racing. The cocks are given about six training tosses, through to Reigate (40 miles) before the first Federation race, but are never trained during the season, just exercised around the loft for an hour, twice a day. They are fed on V.L. Super Widowhood Mixture and during the racing season are broken down from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning. The cocks are only shown their mates on Friday night for the first three races. Dave says this is mainly to teach the yearlings the widowhood system and for the rest of the season the nest bowl is turned. On their return from the race, the cocks get their hens for about an hour. Generally the cocks get two channel races before going into the longest events and are never re-paired for these races, at the end of the season. Dave and Gary have been racing the Widowhood system since 1985. The main families raced are Busschaerts and Massarella / Verheye, but have a few Janssen and Jan Aarden pigeons.

As I've previously stated the Heywood's have put up some wonderful performances through the years, but the 2002 season was one of their best, winning 1st open BICC Bihorel, 2nd open BICC Gellainville, 13th open BICC Bourges, 1st and 5th open London & South Coast Combine Tours, 2nd and 16th open L&SECC Tours (2,459 birds), 1st open L&SECC Tours yearling derby and flew only three inland races, recording 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Poole, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th Fareham (young birds). Brilliant pigeon flying! The partners Tours yearling derby winner was their good blue chequer pied cock, “Diane's Choice”, named after Dave's wife, who is a great worker at the Heywood's loft. He was bred from a cock obtained from a local fancier named, Norman Flint and a Massarella / Jan Aarden hen. On his build up his classic win he had three inland races, Alencon, Le Ferte Bernard, then in to the Yearling Derby and was raced on the Widowhood.

The partners raced their 60 youngsters on the darkness system for two seasons, but Dave packed it in because of stress and young bird sickness. He maintains the “dark” doesn't affect the birds in latter life, because he won 1st. open B.I.C.C., 1st. open Combine and 1st. open L.& S.E.C.C. with yearlings. He trains the young birds up to 40 miles for three weeks before the first race and twice a week during the season. He feeds heavy twice a day and races to the perch. The young cocks get only three races, being saved for the widowhood system and the young hens go over the channel, racing the full programme.

Dave is a steel erecter by trade and says he couldn't race pigeons without his wife, Diane's help, as he works long hours. The 16 pairs of stock birds are kept at Gary’s home and these are housed in two big lofts, with flights. These are paired up in late December and the partners like to bring in new birds every year and these are normally direct off champion pigeons. Dave told me, his families of pigeons race well up to 450 miles and his biggest thrill was in 2001, when he had the only bird on the day in the clock station from the N.F.C. San Sebastian race and recorded 106th open. A great pigeon racing partnership!

The members entered 213 birds into the Old Hens Classic and Meg Murray of Burnham on Crouch was up there again at the top of the open result, recording her second L&SECC winner in two seasons. Meg’s winner was a real ‘banger’ recording 1279ypm and being 30 ypm faster than the second fastest bird out the Classic’s transporter that day. A brilliant performance by this leading lady fancier! This win was the icing on the cake for Meg as she won a BICC race earlier in the season. Another fancier enjoying a wonderful 2010 season is Derek Bellchambers of Brentford and he recoded 2nd Old Hens Classic behind Meg Murray, after winning the first Old Hens Classic in mid-August. Congratulations to these two outstanding fanciers!

Just a little reminder that the L&SECC Dinner & Prize Presentation will be held at the Reigate Manor Hotel on 15th January and ticket are now available from our secretary, Terri Hoskin, on Telephone: 01494 786026. It’s a great night out!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.