Stambridge Pigeon Flying Club held their £1000 Berwick young bird open race on Bank Holiday Monday 31st August. This is a real specialist young bird race, as it is simplyone pigeon, one loft for competitors flying over 285 miles, with most that entered flying between 306 - 314 miles. The race entry needs to be in three weeks before the race and then the bird is picked on the day of basketing. This ensures that the club fully understands any financial risks that they may take, as in previous years they have run the race at a small loss.

Jan Kowalczyk

This year saw a good turnout with 52 competitors entering the race and of these 50 birds were basketed on the day. The marking took place at Stambridge PFC headquarters at the Hawkwell Village Hall and this year the fanciers were well catered for, with free cups of tea, coffee and bacon rolls to say thank you for entering and for being up early on a bank holiday Sunday morning. The race carried total prize money of £1000 split £500, £350 and £150.  Pools was also on the cards up to a £20 single nom. The fanciers were keen to pool there birds, which resulted in £1,115  worth of poolsbeing flown for, with the £1000 prize money added a total of £2115 was up for grabs. Not bad, these days for a north road race in the Essex area. Basketing went very well with an even mix of conventional and ETS clocks. Marking finished at 11am and the birds were sealed and put on the transporter. It was now down to Terry Spearpoint the club president and the race Convoyer Keith Gardiner to make their way up to Berwick.

Terry had come prepared this year and had been lent a tent. The idea was simple get to Berwick settle the birds and then put the tent up. All I will say on this matter is that Terry intends next year to use the local Travel Lodge. I will not spoil the tale of the chips, beer and torch, as I am sure it will make for a good yarn over the winter at the various pigeon club presentations. Monday morning the weather in Berwick was bright and the birds were liberated at 07.00hrs into a South West wind. The club secretary contacted all of the competitors and the race was on.

Locally the talk was that a good pigeon would be around 18.30hrs. This time came and went and the ringing of the phone was just from competitors confirming that they were still waiting. That was until just after 8pm when Jan Kowalczyk contacted Paul Devoto the secretary to say that he had clocked just before 8pm. Jan had the only bird home on the day after what was a very, very hard race. Jan was thrilled at clock checking and has the privilege of being the only bird on the day being an all pooler and picking up the tidy sum of £1337.50. Jan was still smiling when I went to take his photo.

The sire of this brave youngster was bought by Jan, when it was entered into a futurity sale by Lee Bastone. Lee bred the futurity bird from his very good Belge Willy Tass cock paired to a lovely Soontjen cross Van Reet hen from his dad's loft. Dave Bastone had some of the best Soontjen and Van Reet birds to be found in the country. Jan knows the quality of Lee's birds and snapped it up, and he was proved right because it won the Essex and Kent Amalgamation race from Ripon last year. The dam of the Berwick winner was a good racer in her own right and was bred from a Marcelis hen paired to a cock from Jan's good friend, Steve Harris from Cleveland. Jan says when he got the bird it looked just like a crow, so 'Crow' he was christened. Crow or not, as well as breeding Jan the dam of the Berwick cock, this pair also bred him the section winner of the North Road Championship Club YB race from Dumbar.

Jan works all his birds hard and he says thanks, in particular, to Geoff Richmond for training his birds north and to fellow club members who took his birds when they went to basket for the NFC races at Cambridge. Jan flies with the Leigh on Sea Club and he has had a very good season flying south, including winning the Leigh Club YBrace from Lyndhurst two weeks ago and doing well in all the Channel races with the BICC and London & SECC.

Jan would like to thank good friends Reg and Maureen Collingwood from Witham for sponsoring him and says the winner, a lovely young blue chequer pied cock, will now be known as 'Reggie'! Jan also wants to thank Stambridge FC and Mr Trevor Chadwick for putting on this race (the bacon rolls and tea went down a treat) and to say 'well done' to friend John Moss for yet another FED win, (first four places, in fact) making it a total of five Essex Central Feds wins this year.

On the Tuesday, the race opened again and competitors were looking for an early clocking with plenty of prize and pool money still to be won. At just after 07.00am local fancier Barry Hall clocked a Jose Thorne b/ch henbred out of his race team to take second Open. This again was an all pooler and picked Barry up £516.50. Barry picked the bird out for this race following the way the bird came from the Essex Central federation 1st Wetherby race, in a south wind. The hen had just started showing out to a cock bird before the race and repaid his judgement.

Third open and timing at just after 08.00am was the partnership of John and Jackie Whipps. Their pigeon was a Soontjen chequer cock. The mother of the bird won the fed as a yearling from Berwick and scored in the combine. This pigeon was also a 'gold ring' pigeon in their club and won several positions, including picking up pool money. The cock was sent to the race to a big youngster. This bird carried no pools but still picked up the third prize of £150.

Fourth Open went to Bernie McDermott; his pigeon was a mealy hen and was clocked just after 9.30am. Being an all pooler again, this picked up the last share of the pools and £111. The hen was bred out of a Busschaert cock bred by Bernie’s good friend Tim Rodwell of Kent with the mother being a pigeon that Bernie purchased from Louella being of the Parkside Superman bloodlines. Bernie had four birds picked out to choose from for the race, but the Peterborough midweek race before basketing made his mind up. This hen was his first bird back to his loft by over an hour in a very hard race. She was sent paired up and sitting 14-day eggs. She had previously been consistent back to the loft in second, third position. P&R Cole, Lee Fribbens, Frank White and Stan Rollinson recorded other timings in race time, with a number of other fanciers having their bird’s home on the 2nd day but outside of race time.

Stambridge PFC would like to thank all competitors for supporting the race and extend their congratulations to the winners. It is hoped to run the race again next year and if supported are looking at potentially increasing the Prize money. They would also like to put a challenge out to the Kent boys to see if they fancy their chances of getting in amongst the prizes.