Keith Mott writes about winning fanciers past and present..

London & South East Classic Club “Forum”

  MIKE ARMITAGE OF ASH

My assistant for the first London & South East Classic Club Guernsey young bird and old hens classic of 2008 was my son, Mark, and I must say I really enjoy have him riding ‘shotgun’, as he works hard, and is great company. Doesn’t time fly; this was my fourteenth visit to Guernsey with the L&SECC pigeons! For several days before the first young bird event from Guernsey, according to the early weather reports, it looked like it was going to be a holdover with rain over the Channel Islands on that Saturday, but my weatherman Steve Appleby, studied his carts and told me their could be a window in the weather for an early morning liberation. On the day Steve and I put our heads together and had an early release, too produce an excellent race against all the odds. I liberated the 2,151 birds at my earliest time ever at Guernsey and on my return home, late on Sunday morning; it was great to hear that the members enjoyed a very good race, with excellent returns. On our arrival at the Guernsey car park liberation site the sky had broken cloud cover and was bright and starry. I got no sleep as I knew it would be an early liberation or a hold over until Sunday and was keen to keep an eye on the weather and prepare the transporter for release. I rang my race advisor, Steve Appleby, at 06.00hrs and he gave me a favourable weather report for the English Channel and main land England, but informed me that the pending bad weather was about 40 miles west of Guernsey and coming in. I watched the weather with antisapation and with the sun braking through the 60 per cent broken cloud cover, we liberated the 2,151 birds at 06.30hrs in a brisk south / south west wind. The convoy broke into three batches and cleared Guernsey in a northerly direction in good time. After parking the transporter in the dock yard we had a full English breakfast at our regular café on the sea front and noticed it started to spit with rain at 08.00hrs, and then the Guernsey weather took a nose dive. At that time our birds were just hitting the south coast of England and were hot-foot on their way home. It was a work of art getting liberation and good race that day from a rain soaked Guernsey, but we beat the weather and enjoyed a good young bird and old hens classic!

Mike Armitage of Ash sent six widowhood hens to the old hen’s classic and had a brilliant race, timing in five of his entries to record 1st, 7th, 26th, 75th and 91st open. Wonderful pigeon racing by any ones standards! Mike’s classic winner was his good yearling blue hen, ‘LuLu’, and she was raced on Mike’s widowhood method, which he says is really a jealousy system. This game hen won the old hen’s classic by over 50 ypm and also beat the young birds classic winner! She had every ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week Hamworthy race and three Federation channel races on her built up to her Classic win, and is not stranger to success having won several premier prizes for the Armitage loft. Her sire is Mike’s good racing cock, ‘Centenary Boy’, winner of 1st club, 365th open Nantes Centenary Race (65,000 birds) in 1999 and he was bred Roger Lowe’s Hartogs and Mike’s old family of Marriotts.

Mike is the publican of the ‘Lion Brewery’ PH in Ash and has recently erected a new loft in the pub garden, and I must say it looks very smart. The main 50ft Belgium style racing loft was purchased from Johnny May of Worcester Park after his recent retirement from pigeon racing and is kitted out with slatted floors, Perspex roof lights, German up and over nest boxes and the ETS. Mike races 30 cocks and hens on his widowhood system and to conform with the ‘bird flu’ seven day rule, he raced hens one weekend and the cock the next in the 2008 season. The stock birds are housed in nice big aviaries and with a recent introduction of some Janssen pigeons from ‘Fountain Head’, Mike has his biggest stock team ever, 20 pairs. He feeds all ‘Gem’ corn and never breaks his racers down. He pairs his stock birds up on 10th December and the races in February, when they rear a single youngster before going on the widowhood system. At the end of the season Mike breeds a select few late breds off his best racers which are retained for stock. Mike breeds about 60 young birds for himself to race and these are put on a semi-darkness, which Mike says, they are taken off earlier than the conventional darkness pigeons, as he like them to moult as normally as possible. Mike uses the ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week for training his youngsters and says, ‘a 100 mile race every Wednesday is brilliant education for them and then they race the Classic and National races’.

Mike Armitage, the pigeon racing publican from Ash, won 1st open British International Championship Club from Le Ferte Bernard in the 2000 season and has won the L&SECC three times, and although I've visited his home many times, the last time as a pigeon writer was when he won the Classic from Alencon , with 3,252 birds competing. I was chief convoyer and press officer for the Classic at that time, and drove down to the ‘Lion Brewery' to see his winning pigeon. Mike's winner, a Fountainhead Janssen blue chequer cock was raced on Mike's own semi-widowhood system. This handsome pigeon, named “Wonder Boy” by Mike's young son, Tom, had won five races previously and raced in the Weymouth mid-week race on the Wednesday, before winning the Classic on the Saturday. The Armitage loft had a brilliant weekend winning 1st and 10th open L&SECC Alencon, 8th open BICC Le Ferte Bernard and 1st club Sennen Cove. A fantastic loft performance for one weekend!

Mike started up pigeon racing in his home town of Hull over 50 years ago and has been an outstanding fancier over the years, winning many premier racing honours, including: 10th open NFC Pau, the first ten positions in an open race and 1st open Federation many times. Years ago he liked sprint racing, but is now in to channel racing with the BICC and NFC. He has been a publican for over 30 years and has been over 25 years at the ‘Lion Brewery’, a wonderful little pub set in the Surrey countryside at Ash. The ‘Lion Brewery’ is very much a pigeon pub, with several clubs being based there, including the British International Championship Club, which has been there at Ash for about twelve years. He told me when the BICC first came to the ‘Lion Brewery’ it had 164 member and now it has progressed up to over 1,300 members, which he maintains is full credit to a great management team. Mike has three lofts totalling 160 ft. smartly set in the pub garden and all the birds are trapped through open windows to the ETS system. The families raced are Fountainhead Janssens and Busschaerts, Roger Lowe’s Hartogs and the fantastic Marriotts obtained from John Grey of Hull in 1977. The Marriott pigeons have been outstanding for Mike over the years and the 8th open B.I.C.C. Le Ferte Bernard winner on that brilliant weekend was a Marriott blue chequer hen, raced on the semi-widowhood.

The Armitage pigeons are raced on Mike's own semi-widowhood system, where by he can race both cocks and hens in different races on the same day. He pairs up on 14th February and the pairs are split in the normal widowhood way after their first round of youngsters. The cocks are raced and the hens trained in midweek, with them seeing one another two or three times during the week. Mike says he never breaks the racers down, but the racers are mostly fed on a first class widowhood mixture. He works very hard with his birds and they are so tame, that some times they land in the garden on their return from a race, and Mike can pick them up and clock them on the lawn. He keeps a bit of condition seed in his loft coat pocket and the birds follow him around the garden, looking for a tit-bit, which he gives them by hand. Mike's lofts and pigeons are a credit to him!

Well that’s another ‘ON THE ROAD’ done and dusted! I would like to wish all our many friends in the world of pigeon racing and showing, a happy new year! For any pigeon comments please contact me on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.