MIDLANDS NATIONAL FLYING CLUB

MIKE LAKIN

FOUGERES - JUNE 2014

A Hard Earned Win For Shaun McDonough

Shaun McDonough's children Callum and Morgan with their first two arrivals, the Dark Hen and her sister.

When the MNFC convoyers got the 8,448 birds away on Sunday the 15th June at 6.30 am it was very clear that every one of them that they were  going to have to ‘put a hard shift in’ to get back home. The wind was a 10mph North Easterly which would be even stronger on the open channel. This proved to be the case, not helped by the fact that the predicted sunshine for the UK failed to materialise in many parts.

Though many of the birds struggled, some real heroes emerged, none more so than the Wildemeersch hen belonging to the Provisional winner Pelsall’s Shaun McDonough. His two year old hen recorded a provisional velocity of 1192 as she covered the 298 mile journey in 7 hours 20 minutes. My information is very sketchy at the moment but Shaun did tell me that her father is a wonderful breeder with many good winning children. Well it looks like he now has a National winner to add to his C.V.

Though I don’t normally mention any other people or pigeons in my initial report I feel that I must mention Richard Lutner of Lilleshall who I spoke to earlier in the day to enquire about his returns from the previous day and he said: ‘’Where is the race going to be won today do you think?’’ My reply was: ‘It could be you I will be visiting because the South West must be favourites.’ Well I nearly got it right Richard didn’t I? I will though be visiting in a few days so get the kettle on! Well done on your performance of likely 2nd Open on 1170.

As I wrote, there are some real heroes with all ten sections likely to feature in the top fifty open positions! Though it is amazing, the fact is that tough races like this one are the fairest in a strange sort of way. Certainly some excellent pigeons stepped up to the mark and I shall be covering them all in a week or two. So if your name is in the top four of your section’s Leaderboard send me your details by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or phone me on 01782 624440.

Please note that the Abbey marking Station in Stoke will be marking from 9.30 until 11.30 for our next race from Ancenis. This is to cut down on waiting time for the birds collection.

Happy and home, the Dark hen with her mate.

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