WELL, IT?S ALL OVER NOW?.

No, it?s not the 2017 racing season I?m talking about, it?s the latest round of infighting they call a General Election and from the writer?s point of view the Country is in an even more of a mess than it was before all the hoo-ha started and I thought it was only the RPRA that managed to get itself into an unenviable position!
So, in order to avoid getting myself into more trouble and causing increased confusion at the RPRA I will confine myself to only writing a short article this week and only tell my readers about the news from the Staffordshire Moorlands & District Federation.
Even restricting myself to the above boundaries I can still reveal that I can still not keep totally out of trouble. As part of the Federation?s Race Team I came under some criticism this weekend for agreeing to move the race date forward by 24 hours because we had some reservations about the quality of the predicted weather for Saturday.
However, although the weather in this Country did not prove to be as poor as predicted and most Federations that chose to race on Saturday seem to have had good experiences, our own race on Sunday turned out to be a brilliant affair with just about every member getting 100% returns and all in a very short time. So, once again the Moorlands Fed lived up to its reputation!
Fast times were again the order of the day but not as quick as the Saturday?s times which really were something else and, in my opinion, were not conducive to good and fair racing. Our own velocities, although exceeding 60mph were more what you might hope for when flying with a tail wind, whilst still giving the bird time to think about stopping when they reached home, without the use of a large net!
With all this enthusiastic rhetoric, I am beginning to sound more like a politician with every word I write - maybe I should stand in the next Election, which could be a lot closer

than you may think!

So, on with the real news regarding our Sunday race.

This week it looks like our old friend Paul Beck from Longdendale Club will top the Fed with a bird recording the phenomenal velocity of 1976.633ypm, closely followed by Kenny Horne from Shelton doing 1968.89 and 1967.85ypm and claiming 2nd and 3rd spots in the race from Hullavington with just under 1500 birds competing (a magnificent birdage when you consider how many races were taking place that weekend). Superb flying gentlemen, the Federation?s congratulations are winging their way to you as I write, by means of the Federation website (www.moorlandsfedpigeons.co.uk).

Perhaps the Press Office should be congratulating all the individual winners of all the Clubs in the Fed for some outstanding performances.
ALL managed to crack the 1900 barrier, sometimes with several birds We?re all proud of you for representing the Federation so impressively.
Full details of all the individual performances are available to view on the Federation website and believe me it?s worth taking a look.
The next race on the agenda is Fougères on, hopefully, 17 June just keep your fingers crossed for some proper pigeon racing weather in order that the Race Team

can have a slightly easier time of it!
That just about closes the book for this week, I hope you are all enjoying at least some of the ramblings.
Cheers for now, see you next week,

Brian T Smith
Press Officer SMDF