Keith Mott

The Champions of Yesteryear (Part 35) 

TONY THEODOROU

OF RICHMOND

The month of December saw my daughter Caroline and I drive the ten miles through wintery Richmond Park to visit the home of Channel ‘ace’ Tony Theodorou. We were in that part of the world that day to judge the Ealing Show, so could only spend two hours in Tony's company, but with the quality in his lofts you could stand there all day handling birds.

Tony has two lofts set out very neatly in his massive garden. The main loft is a 30ft Petron, with corridor and the birds are trapped through three Sputniks. This very smart loft is well ventilated through the tiled roof and houses young birds, Widowhood cocks and Natural racers. All the old bird sections are fitted with wooden Widowhood style nest boxes, and the whole set-up is cleaned every day.

Twenty-five pairs of stock birds are housed in a 12ft loft, with a flight where the inmates can take fresh air and have a bath. Tony has spent a small fortune on his stock birds and this loft contains many birds obtained direct from the Belgium masters. The main families raced are Peter van de Eijnden, Denys Bros, Staf van Reet, A H Bennett, Van Bruaene, Janssen and Kirkpatrick. The stock loft houses several direct children of champions, including a Kirkpatrick from 'Virgo' the 1st Open YB National winner. Although Tony is a 100% Channel racer he says he wins a few of the short inland races with the Staf van Reets.

The Theodorou loft flies in the very strong Richmond club (Three Borders Federation), National Flying Club and Surrey Championship Club. To say Tony had a good season in 1993 would be an understatement. He won major trophies in the club, including O.B. Average, Continental Average, First Three Water Races Average, First Combine Race Trophy, Second Combine Race Trophy, Niort Cup, Longest O.B. Race Cup and Longest Y.B. Race Trophy. In Combine racing in the 1993 season the Theodorou loft swept the board, and won many top positions in the Surrey Championship Club, including 1st Wadebridge (young bird) lifting £230 and 2nd Bordeaux (455 miles).

The Theodorou loft won many major positions inland and Combine racing in the 1993 season including: 1st Club, 21st Federation Rennes (1); 1st, 3rd Club, 1st & 20th Federation, 6th SMT Combine (6,976 birds) Nantes (1); 1st Club, 11th Federation Nantes (2); 2nd & 3rd Club, 12th, 13th Federation, 72nd, 76th SMT Combine (6,594 birds) Rennes (2); 1st Club, 3rd Federation, 17th SMT Combine (5,389 birds) Bordeaux; 1st Club, 14th Federation (1,316 birds) Wincanton; 1st, 2nd & 4th Club, 5th, 9th, 18th Federation, 21st, 37th & 61st SMT Combine Wadebridge (young bird), 7,594 birds competing in the Combine. Tony's young bird Wadebridge winner, a nice blue chequer cock, was a really bad trapper and sat out for over ten minutes when he won. The start of the lofts in 1993 was the handsome Denys blue chequer cock, 'Mr Denys', which recorded 1st Club, 3rd Federation, 17th Open SMT Combine Bordeaux 455 miles (5,389 birds). This Natural cock handled medium, apple-bodied and had a wonderful eyesign. He had a sister in the race loft and she had scored several times from the Channel.

Tony's father kept all types of fancy birds in his home in Cyprus and the pigeon bug hit Tony at the age of 21. A young Indian boy came to the Theodorou restaurant in Knightsbridge with a rung pigeon, and Tony got interested and knocked up a small loft in his back garden. In those days Tony trained his birds in shopping bags, he didn't have any baskets. The first real racers Tony obtained were Kirkpatricks from Mr Adams of Durham. He started racing in 1968, with his wife Hazel clocking in, as he had to work all day on Saturdays. His first club was the very big Richmond & District SR and says he had a lot of help from his mates, Kenny Harrison, Mick Honeyball and Couch & Cudmore in the early days.

The present lofts house 25 pairs of stock birds, 38 pairs of racers and about 60 youngsters are bred each season. Half the stock birds are paired up in January with the Widowhood cocks and the other half in February. The Natural birds are paired up in March, with the Channel and longer races in mind. Tony says he races the Widowhood system "the Dave Allen way" and wins more of his inland positions on this method. The Natural birds are trained from Winchester (50 miles) Monday to Thursday at 5am in the morning. He has to train in the mornings as his business is in London and he gets home late at night.

He reckons the main factors behind success with racing pigeons are good corn and lots of training. He says his Bordeaux win in 1993 was his best performance, as he has had many day birds from the longest OB race, but this is the first time he has won it. He maintains his most disappointing race was also in 1993 when his Wadebridge winner sat out for ten minutes and could have won the SMT Combine. All his birds, old and young, have to race through to the longest distances. He rates Bob Besant of New Malden the best all ­round racer, winning 1sts Federation from inland races and twice 1st Open in National F.C. races. Although Tony likes the Widowhood system, his main interest is the Natural birds in the Channel events and he likes birds sitting ten day old eggs or feeding a small youngster.

There you have it, Tony Theodorou of Richmond. He is still racing with outstanding success to his lofts in Richmond and is still  featured in the Three Borders Federation results in the channel races. My phone number is: 01372 463480. See yer!

TEXT & PHOTOS BY KEITH MOTT.