A PASSION FOR PIGEONS
JOE MURPHY & CAMERON STANSFIELD
CHAT ABOUT THE SPORT
Part 1
CS: Joe, we go back a long way, in fact as far back as the early 1990s when you were race controlling for a Scottish organisation. I used to set my alarm for 4.45am on a Saturday morning in order to provide you with a line-of-flight forecast for the Northants area. It was a bit of a pain, to be honest, because Friday night was fun night back then. However, even though we'd never met each other up to that point, I'd got it into my head that you were a chap that was passionate about doing your best for the pigeons, so set the alarm I did. How did it all start for you? What was the catalyst for your life-long love of racing pigeons?
JM: I first became interested in racing pigeons when I was a young boy helping change the water and clean them out, as my dad kept pigeons in the back garden in Kennoway. I used to help on the ringer in the pigeon club on a Friday night, and on Saturday we waited at the local garage for them to receive the phone call saying the birds were up. I would run home and tell my dad but sometimes the birds were home before we had word and that caused some arguments, believe me. I remember at this time that Dad used to buy 7lbs of pigeon food in a brown paper bag from the local Co-op and I was given this bag with a pigeon in it to take to school on the school bus and liberate at Methil, a distance of about 3 miles the crow flies. About 5 years ago at one of my sporting challenge presentation evenings, the bus driver who took a load of us through to the hotel came in at the end of the night and was talking to one of the fanciers and asked how the night had gone. He was told that it had been great pigeon night and then he said, ‘Do you know, there was a lad at school with me who used to bring a bird every day to school in a brown paper bag and let it up; his name was Joe Murphy’. The fancier said, ‘He is the one who organised this, wait and I will go and get him’. Lo and behold it was one of my classmates and I had not seen him for at least 35 years! So it shows that pigeons had a lasting impression on him as well as in my life.
To get back to your question, I used to help my dad with the birds and flew as Joe Murphy & Son up until I started work. I lost interest in the birds as I started in the butcher trade and had to work every Saturday.
Once married, I took on another job as a coalman going round the streets in Glenrothes (where we stayed) and I found this customer feeding a racing pigeon with bits of bread. I asked if she had some lentils and put some down. The bird came over and started to eat them and I managed to catch it. I took it home and moved half of my tools in my garden shed to one side, put up a partition, and put the bird in the other, with a Pyrex dish as a drinker. Then I visited my dad and got some corn from him. I reported the bird to the RPRA and it belonged to a fancier from Wood Green in London. (I think his name was Alf Baker -only joking.) When awaiting the reply from the fancier, I came home one day and found Margaret in the shed speaking away to the ‘Pigeonnie’, as she called it; this was all I needed. The garden shed was converted into a loft and my dad gave me 4 Slabbinck Cattrysse late breds, as did his pal Jim Slavin from Buckhaven. These were my first pigeons and I joined the Glenrothes & Leslie club in 1970, winning with youngsters in this first year being 10th Penrith, 10th Lancaster and 3rd & 4th Leyland. This was the start of my life in pigeons.
The following year we moved to Kennoway and joined the local club as Mr & Mrs Murphy, as my dad was still racing at that time. We again did well with the youngsters in the 1971 season, then the following year we broke our novice status by winning 1st club 6th section 7th open Lymington 382 mils with a chequer hen bred by my dad, and with the youngsters we also won 1st club 9th open Fife Federation Leyland 175 miles and the following week we won 1st & 2nd club 4th & 15th federation, 84th & 115th east section, 252nd & 283rd open SNFC Cheltenham 301 miles, having the only 2 birds in the club on the day.
This was the start of our love affair with the SNFC but it was not until 1975 that we made the result from Rennes being 138th east section from 563 miles. The following year we won 1st club 1st federation 32nd east section 44th open SNFC Avranches from an entry of 5079 birds. That same year we won 13th open 1000 Mile Club 24th section E 327th open BBC Palamos flying 1026 miles from an entry of 1144 birds with a red cock bred down from Jim Slavin birds. By this time we were building up a good team of pigeons and we won the best average ALL (a total distance of 2402 miles) in SNFC races trophy in the club for 4 consecutive years.
We moved to Kirkcaldy in 1984 and continued to achieve good results with the pinnacle being our great hen Mystical Rose winning 1st club (only bird on the day timed at 22.45pm in the dark) 8th open federation Sartilly; 1st club (only bird on the day) 1st region 20th east section 83rd open SNFC Sartilly 3180 birds; then 144th east section 236th open SNFC Sartilly 3685 birds; and finally 1st club 1st federation 1st east section 1st open SNFC Sartilly 3293 birds. She was then retired to stock and bred some outstanding pigeons. I still have 2 inbred grandchildren from her in the loft at the present time (2012) and both are breeding birds to race and win from France,which is a fantastic achievement when you consider that we bred Mystical Rose in 1988.
You spoke to me about the race controlling part of my life. Well, I was elected as Fife Federation race controller and without being big-headed I did a good job with no disasters during my time in this position. The reason for this was I contacted fanciers like you who would always give me good advice about the weather, as I’m of the belief that a pigeon man could give you a better weather report than looking at the TV reports etc. The majority of these fanciers were like me and believed that the PIGEONS SHOULD COME FIRST and I still believe that to this day. If the birds get a good start from any race, the first 50 miles or so being the most important, then they will make it home. How many times have we had bad weather at the home end and yet the birds still come home? You cannot have perfect weather from France or the South Coast right up to Scotland so the birds would entail some type of weather conditions but given a fair chance they will make it home if the start is right.
I have always been a believer that the new beginner’s pigeons are as important as mine if in the same transporter. OK, mine may be in better condition and have that extra motivation that the novice’s birds lack but, like them, all I want is the birds home and if both the novice and the experienced fancier achieve this goal then, as a race controller, I have done a good job. I would rather everyone was happy with good returns than someone win the race but has ¾ of their team missing.
To be continued...
