Keith Mott
Writes about winning fanciers past and present
London & South East Classic Club ‘Forum’
Ian Crammond & Nigel Langstaff of Fontwell
My assistant for the last old bird race of the 2008 season from Bergerac was my good mate, Brian Goodwin, and I must say he has worked out of his skin for the three Classic races he has covered with me this season. The life of a pigeon convoyer is a very hard one and Brian has done a brilliant job as my assistant, in spite of his recent health problems. This was his last race, but says he really enjoyed the experience, especially going to Tarbes. Thanks mate! We dropped off empty baskets at the marking stations the day before marking and I had the great pleasure of meeting up with my long standing friends, Mike and Edna Shepherd, at the Stevenage marking station. Mike is one of my oldest friends in the sport and is my ‘mentor’, being the man who pushed me on with my pigeon articles in the early 1970s. It’s been a few years since we have met up and was really nice to see them both!
The L&SECC and CSCFC had their usual successful transport amalgamation in the 2008 season, and I convoyed the CSCFC birds to Tarbes and they took the L&SECC birds to Bergerac for the last old bird race. When we arrived at the Salisbury marking station with the London pigeons the place was buzzing and the atmosphere was brilliant! The CSCFC were convoying several organizations to Bergerac and the place was very busy with fancier’s ether marking or transferring pigeons to the Classic’s aluminium race crates. Brian and I unloaded the 1,100 L&SECC birds and the crew at the Salisbury marking station did a brilliant job of re-basketing them, which was very hard work. My ol’ mucker and CSCFC convoyer, Tony Cain, took the birds to Bergerac in the South of France, and liberated at 05.30hrs in no wind.
The L&SECC was won by the very successful south coast loft of Ian Crammond & Nigel Langstaff of Fontwell. To say the partners had a good season in 2008 would be an under statement, winning many premier positions right threw from Federation to National level, including: 1st open L&SECC Bergerac, 2nd open NFC Angers, 3rd L&SECC Tours and 4th open BBC Bordeaux. Brilliant pigeon racing! Ian and Nigel recorded their third L&SECC win in mid-July and about two weeks after the event, Peter Taylor and I picked a nice summer’s day to make the 60 miles drive down to Fontwell to see the Bergerac winning pigeon. Ian Crammond is famous in the pigeon racing fraternity for his wonderful loft set which is sited on his rare breeds farm near Fontwell Race Course, just a couple of miles from Bognor, on the south coast. I have visited the farm many times over the years, but never tire of viewing the partner’s great lofts and pigeons. The partner’s Bergerac Classic winner was their three year old champion Vandenabeele blue chequer cock, ‘Crackerjack’ and he is a M. & D. Evans pigeon, being a grandson of ‘Eisenhower’. Nigel told me he is named ‘Crackerjack’ because he crackers and is very mad around the loft. After being clocked on the day to win the L&SECC Bergerac race in 2008, he was sent back to the NFC race from Saintes (353 miles) and recorded 3rd section A, 84th open. ‘Crackerjack’ had the best velocity of the six organizations (3,442 birds) liberate off the CSCFC transporter at Bergerac that day and won the RPRA Southern Region Award for best individual performance up to 450 miles. He is bred from a long line of good winning pigeons and his full brother won 1st section NFC St. Malo.
Ian Crammond has been in the sport 60 years and has won it all in that time including three times 1st open L&SECC, 1st open BICC and 1st section in the NFC several times. He tells me the partners have several families going well at the present time including the M. & D. Evans / Vandenabeele, Peter Van Osch and Emil Dennys. He has had his present loft set up at Fontwell about 14 years and has taken Nigel on as a full pigeon partner in recent seasons. Ian can’t praise Nigel enough, saying he is first class pigeon man and is mostly responsible for their outstanding racing success in the 2008 season. Ian likes the continental families of pigeons, with going over to Belgium and Holland obtaining top class birds being a big part of his hobby, which he joys as he has made some good friends of fanciers from over the English Channel. When he goes out to obtain new stock he always goes to lofts that are winning consistently with very big birdage in the National and Combine races. Ian says years ago he enjoyed long distance racing and did not mind waiting several days to clock a bird from Spain, but these days he only likes one day racing, up to about 550 miles.
The partners race 120 cocks on the widowhood system and these racers are split in to two teams, one for sprint to middle distance and the other for long distance. The racers are not broke down, being fed on a good widowhood mixture and the two teams are trained separate and flown out around the loft separate. Nigel likes racing out to places like Bordeaux and Saintes, but his ambition is to win 550 miles National race. The partner’s long distance loft is the focal centre of the magnificent set up and Ian calls it ‘master control’. It is about 50ft long, with a corridor where the birds trap into off landing boards and all the nest boxes are self cleaning, with the fronts being colour coded to each section. The loft has a closed in front with Perspex windows, an office to keep all pigeon records, a roomy full length flight at the rear for the widowhood hens and all clocking is on ETS. Ian says the long distance loft is the product of many year of work altering it to get it right. The sprinting widowhood cocks are housed in 50ft loft with a pan tiled roof, open door trapping and is totally closed in. Ian’s pride and joy is his magnificent stock loft and flights, which house over 100 pairs of breeders that have been obtained from the very best continental champions over the years. The partners like to pair the stock birds up early in the year and each family has it own section in the loft.
Other premier racers at the Fontwell loft are: ‘The Van Osch Cock’ – This wonderful five year old blue chequer cock looked and handled like a show pigeon, with beautiful feather, balance in the hand and pearl eye. The Van Osch pigeons are a Dutch family, being Janssen based and are winning well for Ian and Nigel. This widowhood cock recently won 1st open BICC Exeter (1966 birds). ‘Son of Eisenhower’ – This five year old champion blue white flight cock is one of the premier widowhood racers at the Fontwell loft today, winning 2nd open L&SECC Wadebridge, 2nd open BICC Exeter and 4th open L&SECC Bordeaux. A brilliant racer! ‘The Tours Cock’ – This three year old blue cock won 3rd open L&SECC Tours in the 2008 season. ‘The 38 Cock’ – Another brilliant three year old and this blue chequer cock won 1st section A, 71st open NFC Saintes (353 miles) in 2008. ‘The JT Mealy Cock’ – This handsome long distance cock is from the Eric Cannon bloodlines obtained from John Tyerman of Bracklesham Bay and at time of our visit to the loft was being prepared to go to BICC Perpignan International marking that same evening. He had flown Tarbes (550 miles) twice, being clocked on the day of liberation with the L&SECC and was clocked from Perpignan, too complete 2,000 miles racing in the 2008 season.
Ian and Nigel breed about 300 youngsters every season and sell 100 of them, with the rest being retained for racing. They are all put on the ‘dark’ system and raced natural to the perch. The young bird loft is 40ft long, with open door trapping and on race days the birds go down to a small door at low level, so they can be registered on the ETS system. If the weather is good the babies are trained from Southampton, which is a 40 minute fly, five days a week and are raced out the longest NFC and BBC young bird race points. The partners don’t break the youngsters down and feed them the same widowhood mixture as the old birds. Nigel tells me he used to enjoy only old bird racing, but these days seems to enjoy his young bird racing more.
Well that it for this week! I would like to congratulate Crammond & Langstaff on their wonderful success in the 2008 season and thank them for a very nice loft visit. I can be contacted with any pigeon comments on telephone number: 01372 463480. See yer!