JOHN & JOHN GOSLING
& THOMAS GRICE
Liverpool Classic Club Premier Prize Winners 2013
by Darren Smith
John holding Mufty, winner of 1x1st, 2x2nd Liverpool Classic Club, 3rd, 4th, 5th west section MNFC and over £5,000 in pools and prizes.
Can you tell me a little about yourself and how you became involved in the sport?
I came into the sport at a young age, going back to about 1969 when me Dad had pigeons. At the time he flew in the Derby Homing Society with the likes of Bisto Williams, Stan Brown, Tony Farrell, Owen Rodgers, Tom McGough and Micky Gibbs. We were living on Pleasant Street just off Derby Road there. Me Dad came home one day after he’d been on the ale and me Mam was nagging him so he disposed of all the birds.
I was about 8 years old at the time and was distraught, I was crying me eyes out. Seeing how upset I was, me Dad went out and built me a small hutch type loft and got me a couple of strays from different people and into their new abode they went. I used to race home after school of an afternoon and I’d invite all me mates to come and see them and they’d be amazed at the pigeons eating out of me hand.
As time went on my love for the pigeons grew further. My Dad’s sister married a man named John Redfern and they set up home just down the road from us. The Redferns are a well known pigeon family here in Liverpool and uncle John’s dad was old Johnny Redfern. Johnny was a great pigeon fancier and flew in the Litherland Homing Society at the time. Every weekend I’d go and stay in me aunties and while all the lads would be out playing football I’d spend hours in the garden just talking pigeons with Johnny. I suppose you could say he was my first mentor.
It wasn’t long before we upped sticks and moved to Church Road in Litherland and my Dad and I went into partnership, not very successfully I might add. We’d take the odd card but we finished bottom of the sheet more often than we finished on top of it.
Upon leaving school I embarked upon an apprenticeship as a chef at the Adelphi Hotel and didn’t really have time for pigeons with working split shifts and weekends so the pigeons and I went our separate ways and it wasn’t long before birds of another variety began to take my interest! Over the next few years I progressed through my career and went on to join the Tetley pub company as a pub manager.
It wasn’t until 1998 when I took over the Rocking Horse public house that I rejoined the fancy and became a member of the Litherland HS once more and we had some great success there with pigeons sourced from the lofts of North East aces Hindaugh & Donaldson and Marsay, Taylor & Robinson.
The success we achieved was in stark contrast to our previous attempts and we won the Pirrie Gold Ring, the Leigh Arms Gold Ring and finished as premier prize-winners 4 years out of the 5 that we flew in the Litherland as well as breaking a few records such as taking the first 5 and first 6 in the club. Then in 2004 (and just as we had the makings of a decent team) I packed the pigeons in again as I was looking to buy my own business, a pub up in Bickerstaff.
The pigeons though were never far from my thoughts, I was literally itching to get them back and so it was in 2006 that the pigeons returned briefly racing to this property, which I had bought when I had the Rocking Horse and in my first season back I just raced young birds in the Pirrie Flying Club. However it didn’t take me long to realise that I needed to channel my attention solely into making a success of the business and so once more pigeon racing took a back seat.
It wasn’t long though before the recurring itch returned and again became too much to resist, so in 2010 I returned to the sport in anticipation of the sale of my business in 2011 and re-applied to the Pirrie where I raced 3 young bird races and done quite well up to federation level. We brought them back out as yearlings in 2011 and with 36 cocks won 6 of the inland races and topped the North Liverpool Federation 3 times.
The pigeons we had at this time were sprint based, namely the Staf Van Reets and Frans de Meyers which I purchased at the entire clearance sale of Kevin Head. I bought 2 pairs at this sale and they have literally churned out winners in club, federation and classic racing.
In 2012 I spoke a lot with young Georgie Penno after being impressed by his racing achievements with the Midlands National Flying Club and he inspired me to try my hand at the Nationals so I introduced myself to Mark Gilbert and Geoff & Catherine Cooper and acquired pigeons from the very best of their Emiel de Weerdt bloodlines.
But having made the investment I wasn’t really enjoying my time in the sport and was ready to pack in again. I was then approached by Thomas Grice in 2013 with a view to becoming partners and after some deliberation I decided to take him up on his offer. The Gilbert and Cooper pigeons were raced for the first time as young birds in 2013 and won over £10,500 in the various classics and gold ring races we had entered in so it was a pleasing start, you know.
The opportunity arose for us to join the Netherton Homing Society in 2014 and I’d like to thank the lads there for welcoming us into the club. They are a cracking bunch, it’s given us a lift and I’m enjoying the racing once more. We also finished premier prize-winners in the first season of the Liverpool Classic Club which again has provided us with a big lift and we are looking forward to putting together a team to compete at the highest level possible.
Who were your mentors in your early years in the sport?
Me Dad has been me biggest mentor throughout my life, not just with the pigeons. Then I would say old Johnny Redfern but I would also like to mention a fella from the period when I was a member of the Litherland first time round and that is Jimmy Thompson. He used to look after me then and take me everywhere with him and give me pigeons as I was learning. Davie Spackman is another, I went and bought late-breds off Dave and learned a lot from him, mainly the application of common sense. There is also Barry Grundy who is a fantastic flier and has been a very good friend of mine going back to when I was about 14 years old and also young Georgie Penno for all the help he has given me in making the transition to National flying and again we go back a long way.
Have they taught you anything which you still practise today?
The main thing I would say I have learned from these men is to keep an open mind, keep things simple and always try to apply common sense. To a certain degree I believe you have to have a routine or some form of regularity, but not in the sense the pigeons have to go out every day at a certain time. I no longer believe that although years back I would have done everything to a strict schedule.
Now if I come down and don’t like the day or it is raining, I won’t let them out or will leave it until later on and see if the weather warms up. Like everything the way I go about my management and selection has evolved, it simply has to or you get left behind. Practise makes perfect is a term I would use here but there are certain indicators that you learn to recognise that may work to your favour somewhere along the line.
You speak to different people and there is always something that will be said in conversation and I will pick up on as a really good idea. I really do try to use a common sense approach. In the early years and using myself as an example as in those years I spent more time near the bottom than the top, you’d ask for advice from top fliers, what they were doing that made them successful and they’d tell you. But although they were probably being 100% honest with what they were telling you, you wouldn’t believe it. It was too easy.
Take for example great fliers like Charlie and Terry (McArdle & Archbold), if they said we let them out of a morning and when they come in we give them an ounce of feed and after that some brown bread, you’ll be thinking, ah they’re not telling me everything. But these guys are and really it’s very, very simple, it’s common sense.
I think once you break away from that mindset that they have to go out at a set time or must only have an ounce of feed no more, your confidence as a pigeon fancier increases and you‘re able to say I‘m not afraid to come away from this convention and try something different. The pigeons begin to tell you through their behaviour and more importantly you begin to see it.
Can you tell me what preparation goes into your breeders prior to pairing up?
I don’t blind treat for anything prior to pairing and my view on this is simple, they have just come through a period of rest where they have been receiving the best of everything and they should be in the best possible shape from a health and condition aspect. I do send the droppings away and would only ever treat on the advice of a vet. I used to canker them while sitting on eggs 10 days but I didn’t even do that this year.
I do try to ensure that the hens don’t get fat prior to pairing, but funny enough when I have had a hen that has been heavier in the hand than the others they’re normally first to lay! I’ve heard fliers say I had 30 odd pair all lay within 8 days, I have actually had that meself so I believe them. But it doesn’t worry me if they don’t providing once they start going down they do all lay within a day or two of each other, you know they’re right then.
What you don’t want is one pair laying and then the next pair don’t go down until 6 days later and so on, then you’ve got problems.
How do you race your old birds?
I was a firm believer that if you had a well drilled team of widowhood cocks you could not be beaten and if you would have said to me you could beat them with hens I’d have said no way, but I’ve totally changed my opinion on that. Now I believe hens can and should be a vital part of anyone’s team if you give them a chance.
In the past hens have been put to the back of people’s minds as they focus on racing their widowhood cocks and then the young birds take over and regardless of the condition they have been kept in I just think we abuse hens really.
Last year I tried 12 hens on the celibate system and the way they performed was enough to convince me. I didn’t send to all races but to highlight a couple of results, they took 1st club 4th fed, 1st, 2nd, 3rd club, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fed beaten on a decimal. I decided I was going to give it another go this year and straight away they have continued winning where they left off in 2013.
The reason I tried hens was because as youngsters all the better pigeons seemed to be of the fairer sex. I found they were more honest, most of the bigger performers were hens and I just thought it was a shame after that year to be put away in a box or an aviary and not used at all.
The goal is to have a team of 30 hens and 30 cocks because of our ambition to win a National and to race consistently at that level. When I spoke to Georgie Penno about it and how he done it, he told me he started off with the pigeons that were racing very well for him at club level but it wasn’t long before he found out that those pigeons weren’t necessarily the best pigeons in the National and he lost a lot at first trying to sort them out you’re talking federation and amalgamation winners all gone.
But what he did find by racing his young birds out to Carentan was that the pigeons that returned developed into good ones and it happened with our own in 2013. We sent 30 to Carentan which was a damned hard race with the wind on the nose and we clocked 12 on the day with 4 the next morning. They are the basis of our team now and they have all come out this year and performed from the word go.
Describe in as much detail as possible your Friday preparations, from feeding and at what time, through to basketing for the club?
With the cocks I do something that a lot of fanciers don’t do, I let them out of a morning. You’ll hear fanciers saying they can’t get no corn into them of a Friday, well as we know food is fuel and a car won’t run without fuel. My theory is that if I let them out Friday morning, they’ll fly the skies out and they’ll come down ready for a feed.
It’s like us if we go and do a bit of gardening or manual work, we’re ready for feeding afterwards. So the cocks will be fed in the morning and about 3pm I’ll go back with a lighter seed type mix and see if they want any of that. By the time you get to the club the feed has gone through them more or less and they feel right in the hand.
I know a lot of fanciers who feed up on a Thursday evening and won’t feed anything on a Friday, that’s not for me. I know I can feed mine at 5pm on a Friday and it will be through them the next morning anyway. You know it by the birds you leave at home. You feed them a normal measure say 6pm Friday evening and by 6am the following morning it’s gone. I don’t think people should be relying on their birds being hungry to trap them, that’s not the way and I don’t think hungry pigeons will fly. You’re about to do a big job what’s the first thing you want to do, have something to eat before you start.
There are Fridays I’ll give them a bath after the feed and you’ll come here and all the cocks are laid out chilling and this goes back to something else that I believe in that rest is as important as road work. When running the old birds together there is no set rule and I vary things to suit. As an example the last 2 weeks the widowhood cocks haven’t seen their hens I’ve just given them the bowl.
All year round the cocks have access to the full box, but come pairing up time the front comes down and the bowl goes in the back with the hen and it is an action they will come to recognise in the future. For the rest of the year the front is lifted up into the ceiling position. There will be no bowl in there and basically what I’ll do about 4pm on a Friday I’ll drop the front and place a bowl in full of straw or nesting material in the back of the box but keep the cock on the outside and he’ll know what to expect.
Sometimes I’ll show him the hen and sometimes just the bowl, both work. There’s no set time for this to happen either, it could be 10 minutes or half an hour before setting off for the club, you decide what is best.
The stock section with mobile aviary
Describe in as much detail as possible the treatment of your team upon return from a race, from feeding, watering and the time your pigeons are allowed together?
Upon return from a race all birds are fed Diat 200. The cocks will have it in a pot in their box, the hens or young birds in a trough in the section. For the widowhood cocks the hen will always be waiting in the rear of the box on his return and it doesn’t even have to be his own hen. As I take the bowls away I also slide the hen out of the box without the cock seeing her. From Sunday through to Thursday the cocks are practically hopper fed as there is food in front of them around the clock and they receive a top up in their pots 2-3 times a day.
Going into a little more detail on the celibate hens, I tend to let them out of a morning as I find they fly a lot better. I will put the flag out, especially early on as they are just finding their rhythm after being confined all winter. Even now if I don’t put the flags out the hens will fly for 15-20 minutes and then be down on the garden. The cocks however are the exact opposite and will just come out of the loft and immediately go missing. The hens fly just as well providing the flags are out. They’ll bomb past see them and off they go again.
Depending on how well they are flying they’ll have anything from an hour to an hour and twenty minutes liberty then they will be called in and fed quarter of an ounce per head of a seed mix which is a mixture of Diat 200, Redband and Gerry Plus. The hens will then spend the day on the grill floors of the loft and at about 4pm they will be fed an ounce per head of the Superstar Plus. I use a lot of oils on the corn every day such as garlic oil. Of an evening the hens are then locked up on the perches behind a mesh door.
On a Friday I’ll place a nest bowl in each corner of the celibate hens section and throw the fantail cock in with the hens and he’ll visit the different bowls and the hens will be going absolutely mad and what I do is take away the dominant hen first and keep working my way through the remaining hens until they are all basketed, each time removing the
most dominant one.
Can you describe one motivational trick that usually brings about a good racing result?
I’m sending in the Liverpool Classic Club this Wednesday and 3 of my celibate hens laid an egg 11 days ago, the Koopman hen who topped the fed recently being one of them. So I’ve made them little draws for their perches and they’ve been sitting tight. I’m going to take away one hen from each pair tonight. Tomorrow morning after they have been fed I am going to stick a young’un under each of them hens and leave them all day with the youngster and I think that could work. (The race was subsequently cancelled due to inclement weather so unfortunately John did not get to test out his motivational method).
How many old birds / young birds do you race?
Our current old bird team consists of 23 pigeons which are being juggled between the club and Classic racing but the aim as I explained before is to have 30 cocks and 30 hens racing. With the youngsters we do have a high yield but the reason for that is so we can determine which of the stock are producing the more consistent pigeons and remove those that are not producing the goods.
This year there are a hundred youngsters but as we build an established team the aim will be to get this team down to about 60 young birds per year. You go to some lofts and there are a hundred young birds in a shed that is nowhere near big enough to house them all. I like to have about 2 perches per youngster as I believe one of the main reasons for losses is overcrowding and this then leads to other issues. At stock we have 30 pairs of impeccably bred pigeons but the aim is to whittle this down to 15-20 pairs of the very best producers over the next few years and take it from there.
Can you describe your training methods?
I believe in training but I also believe you need to know when to rest them and that comes with experience. I’ve trained young birds 2 and 3 times a day from 10 miles and it works in your federation. I’ve topped the fed just training them at this distance before the first race and what your doing is brain-washing them, a to b, a to b, a to b, which is fine when you’re racing with 3,000 pigeons into Liverpool.
But I believe with the new type of racing we are embarking upon with groups of pigeons breaking off in every direction, they need to be educated. What we done in 2013 was start them off at short points to help them understand what they are doing. They got 24 tosses in a two week period and were then sent to the first federation race so that they were coming with a big group.
From then on I would take them every day from Stafford or Whitchurch, wherever the weather was on the nose. Basically they’re going from two different points where they have to think and work their way into the wind and this gets them mentally and physically fit. Occasionally coming up to a big race I’ll two them up.
John holding cheq Koopman hen winner of 3 x 1st club, 3rd club, 1st, 4th and 9th North Liverpool Fed.
Can you outline your health schedule during the racing season?
If after consultation the vet tells me I have a problem, then and only then I will use prescribed medication. The key indicators for me are the droppings, the eyes and the wattles. We all know or should know our pigeons and when there is something wrong with them and I think observation of your team is very important because should you take the time and trouble to observe, you will actually learn a lot from it.
I vaccinate annually for Paramyxovirus but since 2012 I have also vaccinated for Paratyphoid on the advice of Thomas Devine and they are the only two years my youngsters haven’t contracted young bird sickness.
Do you use supplements, if so, are they specific to pigeons or do you use natural products or both?
I use Garlic Plus and tea of a Sunday. I also use Manuka honey on return from a race and in fact I have some in today as we were racing over the weekend and they had had a right go with some coming through rain.
What corns/feedstuffs do you use?
The seed mix I make up is 1 part Diat 200, 1 part Gerry Plus and 1 part Redband. Occasionally I will add some energy pellets but now there is this energy mix on the market by Versele Laga and I just buy a bag and throw that in as well. For racing I use Versele Laga Superstar Plus for my old cocks and hens.
I have also used this feed for the young birds, but this year I have reverted to the way I fed while racing in Litherland because what I have found when feeding them the Superstar Plus is 4 weeks before young bird racing is due to commence I’m chasing them around the garden to get them flying.
When I flew in Litherland the youngsters would go for anything between and hour and a half and two hours every day and the corn I will be using is another Versele Laga corn, namely Junior UK. I feed once a day as much as they can eat and they fly superbly on it. It is similar to a breed and wean type mixture but has a far higher content of Safflower and less protein.
How much time do you devote to your pigeons both at the loft and while away from the loft?
I spend far too much time with the pigeons, all of my spare time. Do I believe it is necessary, no, but I’m obsessed by them. Because of the size of the set-up it takes a little bit longer getting round the seven sections. In the early days I would be catching the droppings before they hit the floor I was that fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene. Me lofts were immaculately clean but I never ever done anything with them.
As you grow older you become wiser and learn more. My pigeons are now on a deep litter of beech chippings and I will change that once a year on the floor and do the perches once a week. It suits me that way and I do believe the pigeons benefit from an immunity aspect, especially the youngsters.
When I visited Geoff Cooper he was telling me he read a book written by a guy who bred pigeons commercially for human consumption who had invested a lot of money trying to find a way of keeping the health of his livestock at an optimum and what he found was that the pigeons were at the pinnacle of their health when kept on deep litter.
A view of the 72 ft loft
Do you visit other fanciers and observe their methods / share their ideas?
I speak to and visit other fliers all the time because I think we can all learn from one another’s experiences. For example I always used to give my youngsters half a canker tablet upon weaning. Jeff Bowman who I used to fly against in the Pirrie made a very good point that he doesn’t mind if his babies have a touch of canker as they will build up an immune response and fight any trichomonads present and it made sense to me so I implemented it into my system and the youngsters look fantastic for it. I wean the youngsters into a weaning pen and once I am satisfied that they are eating and drinking without any problems they are then put them into the main young bird section.
What are your aims for the future as a pigeon fancier?
My aim in the future is to win a Midlands National event and to remain competitive and keep on enjoying the sport.
How did the idea for the Liverpool Classic club come about?
I decided a while ago the route that I was going to take re National racing and my thoughts turned to how disappointing it must be on a Saturday when the birds are liberated in a west wind and you know you haven’t got a chance as the winner will be clocked over on the eastern side of the country in say Nottingham. Okay you’ve still got the section to win but again the wind can play a big factor in that also.
We have some of the best pigeon fliers in the country here in Liverpool who maybe competing with the Midlands National or at least contemplating it and are probably of the same mindset. You know it’s a west wind, we’re not gonna win it. So I came up with the idea that even when that happens, we’ve still got a great race to compete in here in Liverpool in conjunction with the National.
I then came up with the idea to have a further number of stand-alone races from the coast and to try and ensure there was no advantage to anybody there would be a ten bird limit. There are some top fliers here in Liverpool, but they will empty the shed out in the club and at times luck plays a part and they’ll get 1 out of 40. But if they have to pick 10 out it puts everybody on the same level playing field. So I was devising the structure and trying to make it so a backyard fancier had the same opportunity as someone with a 72 foot loft, you have to pick 10.
Also when racing from the coast I personally believe good pigeons will win no matter where they live in the city and it’s been proven as the first ten positions in the most recent Classic Club race were spread out across the entire boundary.
The previous races it’s been proven too. Lads like Kelly, Sons & Devine down off the river have had some fantastic performances in the Classic Club, and then there’s us up this end. Whereas people might have thought we haven’t got a chance against the lads in the Childwall and the Roby, we have and we’ve proven it.
The next step was to form a committee and some of the guys that came in I’d never spoke to before but I was aware of their strengths and the aim was to blend a mixture of progressive forward thinking people with very experienced people. So I approached the 8 original committee members and explained my idea and how we could get the club off the ground.
The thinking was if we got 50 members in the first year what a club that would be and we actually got 80. It’s increased again this year, not by a great deal and we’ve also had a few of the original members come out until they have built a team they feel are capable of competing on all fronts. So the plan was hatched and looking at competing with the Midlands National there wasn’t a lot of work to be done, a total of 10 races competing for £1300 each race.
A young bird sale was organised which was greatly supported both locally and by some great fanciers from across the UK. We approached local businesses and received small donations and these businesses were then promoted on calendars and stationery we had made up for members. There was a genuine buzz across the city at the time and there still is.
A view up the garden
What do you look for when introducing new stock?
I had done well in the past racing sprint based pigeons but I knew I needed a different type of animal to succeed in open competition. Georgie Penno had provided me with enough examples of this during our conversations as I explained previously. Pigeons that were highly successful in corridor type racing in the fed and amal did not fare as well once the field of competition opened up to places as far afield as the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.
I read a lot of articles on middle distance racing and was looking for pigeons that could compete between 200 and 600 miles. I didn’t want extreme distance pigeons that would only come into play at 700 or 800 miles, I required those which would excel on one day races out to Bordeaux.
I attended a Syndicate Lofts sale in Dublin and purchased pigeons from Peter Fox’s principal breeders, namely Drum & Attila to form the basis of my middle distance loft and these were of the Koopman and van Dyke bloodlines.
After the research I had carried out it became fairly obvious there was nobody better to go to for my distance blood than Geoff & Catherine Cooper and Mark Gilbert. The fact both of these lofts were so successful competing here in the UK against the continental elite only added to my belief and conviction.
I never went directly either loft to buy, I actually purchased my stock via the Pipa website and paid quite a lot of money out but I made sure I got the right pigeons and as I said before the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and at stock now I house 18 children of National winners and 5 children of International winners and these will form the nucleus of my National family.
What has been your best achievement in the pigeon sport?
I’ve been fortunate enough to make premier prize winner of the North Liverpool Federation and premier prize winner of the Liverpool Classic Club in its first year and then there’s the results I’ve achieved in the west section of the Midlands National. I’m proud of all of these achievements.
Can you tell me about your best pigeon/s?
Of the current crop I’d have to say my 3 year old blue pied cock De Meyer cock which was bred out of the main pair from Kevin Head‘s sale. He was the only one from that pair that hadn’t won, but as a yearling late-bred he flew 14 hours on the wing from Fougeres and I took to him then. I just knew he had something and he went on to reward my faith by topping the federation last week and he won again this weekend.
The blue cheq Koopman hen I bred from a pair I purchased from Paul Bell of Maghull and this pair were a grandson of Tips and a granddaughter of Dutch Master. They were only ever lightly bred from, say 3 rounds a year. I’d keep one round and give the others away as gifts or whatever and they bred 8 individual first prize winners with most being multiple first prize winners. I sold the pair when I went into the distance blood and all I have left from them are 2 hens in the stock loft and the hen still racing which has had 1st club, 1st North Liverpool Federation, 1st club, 9th North Liverpool Federation in 2014 and as a yearling she won 1st club, 4th North Liverpool Federation and 3rd club, 4th North Liverpool Federation beaten by loft mates.
Another good pigeon out there is my yearling blue pied cock Mufty. He’s a grandson of Mark Gilbert’s 1st International winner Southfield Supreme on the dam’s side when paired to a Staf Dusarduyn cock bred by Gordon Rigg of Congleton which I purchased from the Chipshop Boys, Phil & Neil Bates of Bagilt. Last year he won 1st Liverpool Classic Club, 4th west section MNFC Chale in a north west wind, 2nd Liverpool Classic Club, 3rd west section MNFC Carentan in a north west wind and he’s come out as a yearling and yesterday won 2nd Liverpool Classic Club, 5th west section MNFC. His winnings so far are in excess of £5,000.
Can you give any advice that would help improve the management/results for a novice/new starter?
Keeping the pigeons healthy is the main thing. Also keep them fit. I think everybody has good pigeon nowadays and I think the best thing for a novice or new starter to do is to befriend a good local flier and obtain pigeons from them and ask for their advice and learn from them. I think observation is important. Don’t just go in the loft and throw some feed and water at them and then leave them alone. Learn from your pigeons by sitting amongst them, observing them and be patient.
Who do you admire in the pigeon sport?
I admire quite a lot of people in different ways, I admire the guys who come every week and they only win once a year or every couple of years but stick at it because it can be a hard sport. I admire the people who keep the sport ticking along such as secretaries, presidents, clock setters and scribes for the commitment and time they put in. In terms of racing there are lots of fantastic pigeon fliers in our city who would ld their own in any other part of the country.
I could go on and on about different top fliers that I have known throughout my time in the sport. I always admired Teddy Morris, he was a proper pigeon man and a very forward thinker and if people had listened to him we’d have had a Liverpool Classic Club 25 years ago. Then there’s Charlie McArdle and Terry Archbold in our club who have been top fliers in the federation for many, many years. I admire Ted Davin & Son, Ted is top-end, then there’s Joey Elder another great pigeon man, Jimmy Weeder who is one of the best in the country if not the best and he’s on his way back with a bang. I admire Kenny Simpson and Brian Maguire for their consistency over many years especially at the distance.
What is it you love about the pigeon sport that keeps you involved?
The competition, me mates as most of them are pigeon fliers and are a good laugh.
Blue pied De Meyer cock, 1st club 1st North Liverpool Fed Yeovil 2, 1st club 4th North Liverpool Fed Portland 1.
What drives you mad about the pigeon sport?
The politics ruin it for everyone.
What is racing in your club like?
The Netherton is a real sportsman’s club. Everyone gets on great and we all have a good laugh. I’ve been in clubs in the past where it’s not nice at all but I’m enjoying me pigeons again and I’m in good company.
The Classic Club is a buzz, you’ve got the top fliers from every club in the city all together mucking in and the vibe is absolutely brilliant, it’s definitely the future of the sport.
Do you have a message for your club-mates?
Thanks to the Netherton lads for opening the radius and allowing us to race with them this year. Also thanks to all the lads involved in the Liverpool Classic Club who have been a part of our success so far.
FIN
I’d like to thank John for inviting us over to view his incredible loft and inmates. It was as Terry Archbold described, Pigeon Paradise. The absolute quality and thought that had gone into the structure and the racing pigeons housed within is abundant, the knowledge and understanding of what it will take to glean the top performances that they were bred for, evident in every sentence uttered by their astute, ambitious owner, an intelligence and hunger to succeed clear for all to see, Stevie Wonder included.
I’d also like to congratulate John for the creation of what will prove to be a superb club for the Liverpool fancy
and also for his achievements in its birth season.
John had a vision for his future participation in the sport and in realising the need to adapt saw a great opportunity to drive the fancy in Liverpool forward. And rather than his vision remaining embryonic, he went out and grasped the nettle with both hands. For that alone he deserves every credit for his efforts.Taking all of the above into consideration, it is perhaps not too difficult to foresee a couple of new names sitting proudly alongside Messrs Toft (1899) & Orchardson (1901) within the plush confines of Liverpool’s exclusive National winners club. Men who many years ago may have also looked into the future and seized the chance to etch their name into the fabric of the British pigeon fancy.
They’ve been waiting on company for a while now.
Good luck John & Thomas.
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