DEESIDE & NORTH WALES
with Paul Jacobs
Hi all. Onto Shotton’s seventh show now which was the final old hens and young hens through the wires show. Doesn’t time fly? It seems like yesterday when racing finished and we began the shows, now people have paired up and will have young in the nest. Soon it will be time for Blackpool (three days to go!) and then to pair up the racers. All systems go!
Our penultimate show was held on the 11th December and our judges for the evening were Shotton’s very good friend, George Pulford. As you might know, George was due to judge at a previous show in November but was struck down by a particularly nasty bug and couldn’t attend the show in question. So, he was asked if he could cast his expert eyes over a show in the future and thankfully he came down tonight and, as usual, done a very good job. Yet again a strong class was on show and I have to feel for the judges as it’s very hard to pick a winner down here. Most of the judges that we’ve asked after judging the show have answered “there were six or seven winners here tonight”. There was a total of £199.50 in prizes and nominations up for grabs tonight which was split £112.00 for the old hen’s class and £87.50 in the young hen’s class which meant altogether there has been £1,639.00 in the seven shows in total. Anyway, George had to run the rule over 76 old hens and after much consideration they gave the first prize to Shotton’s W. Amos and son, well done Mike. Mike’s blue hen was nominated to win £89.20. Mike has shown well this year as he won the very first young hens show this year so his birds are in good nick (is it a Dordin Mike?) In 2nd position is previous Chester 2 Bird winner, Keith Lloyd with a blue cheq hen and £11.40, 3rd – goes to none other than the “Shotton show king” Billy “Coppi” Halliwell, Billy wins £7.60 prize money (I would like to reiterate Chairman Albert Gelder’s words and thank Billy for all his hard work in collecting the money for the raffle every week, thanks Bill!), “Coppi’s” prize winner was a blue cheq hen, another blue cheq wins 4th prize for Colin Lamb who also scoops up 7th place and £3.80 to cap off a good show for Colin, Neston’s Mark Jones shows his birds are still looking well by claiming 6th place (I think Mark will jump up into 3rd place in the points league with these points leapfrogging club mate, Brian Wilcock), finally 8th position goes to a new name to me, P. Buckton, very well done.
Onto the young hens class now and it was represented with 59 birds. In 1st place as well as 6th was Llandudno’s super showman, Rob Fryer. This is the second first prize Rob has won this year as he won the young cocks class back on the 6th November. If I know Rob, he’ll be hell bent on regaining his position at the top of the point’s league next year. Robs winning hen was also nominated (as are most of the winners here) to win £69.80 (well done Rob, you’ll be back!), 2nd position was claimed by Port Sunlights, Steve Williams. Steve collected £8.85, in 3rd place was Flints Tony Dolman taking home £5.90 (a few years ago when I was a young lad Tony was absolutely unstoppable for a couple of seasons in the shows, his birds were top class and won most weeks, so its nice to see Tony visiting Shotton again), 4th position and £2.95 was won by Little Suttons Brian (BV) Jones, 5th place went to Colin Lamb, 7th place was occupied by A. Dutton and finally 8th went to Ellesmere Ports Alan Coombes. Only one change at the top of the point’s league this week. In 1st is this year’s probable winner, N. Favager and son on 84 points, 2nd place is taken by Rob Fryer with 44 points, moving up to 3rd position is M. Jones and son on 26 points, B. Wilcock is 4th on 25 points and finally 5th is jointly occupied by F. Tilston and sons and A. Dutton. Shotton HS would like to thank George Pulford for judging our show and doing a sterling job.
Our final show was the old cocks and young cocks through the wires and was judged by local ace fancier, Saltney’s Ray Powell who was aided by the Deeside Federation secretary, Glenys Huxley. Ray has been a top fancier for many a year, regularly winning over 10 x 1st prizes per season with his elite team of Gevaert Van Schoorisse and Verheye family making him one of the most feared lofts locally. They both had a look at the two classes which had a total of 65 old cocks and 98 young cocks showing a decrease of 9 in the previous old cocks class and an increase of 31 on the last young cocks class! It goes to show these young birds must be through the moult now! Anyway, there was an increase in pools and prize money compared to the last cock’s class as there was a total of £237.50 to show for tonight, splitting into £96.50 in the old cocks and a staggering £141.00 in the young cock’s class. Altogether over the eight shows, a breathtaking total of £1,876.50 has been paid out to the lucky winners this year! 1st prize in the old cocks went to Mr and Mrs O’ Grady winning £77.00 for the partnership, Well done to you both, 2nd place went to Brian (BV) Jones who took away £9.75, 3rd place and £6.50 went to Flint’s Tony Dolman who is turning back the years here, well done Tony, in 4th, 6th and 8th spots and collecting another 9 points to his already staggering points total is N. Favager and son winning £3.25 (can he pick up enough points in the young cocks class to take his total to over 100? Watch this space!), 5th was won by Shotton’s George Harris, well done Georgie! Finally, 7th went to Eddie Bateman of Bateman Bros.
Our final show of 2006 was the young cocks through the wires and before I get onto the results I would like to pass on Shotton HS thanks to all our judges that have excelled themselves judging such strong competition and who have provided us with their company. And we would also like to thank all the competitors who have travelled from far and wide and sometimes in atrocious weather, if it wasn’t for these lads and lasses there wouldn’t be a show to talk of. So let’s hope that next year we can go from strength to strength. And now to the results. Having and exceptional finish to the show season was Brian (BV) Jones who won 1st, 4th, and 8th positions and a nice sum of £116.50, 2nd place went to the show champion of 2007, N. Favager and son and £14.70, 3rd position went to the “orange juice kid”, Robbie Thomas (nice to see you back Rob) plus £9.80, 5th went to Llanwrst’s E. Stevens, 6th place was taken by Shotton’s George Harris who also scored in the old cocks class and finally 7th position went to Brian Wilcock who has shown very well this year. So, the final positions in the show points league went like this; 1st with an amazing total of 100 points was none other than N. Favager and son, 2nd on 44 points was Rob Fryer, in 3rd on 30 points and coming from nowhere was Brian (BV) Jones, 4th position went Neston’s Brian Wilcock and finally 5th went again to Neston’s Mark Jones and son. Well done to you Neston lads and thanks for supporting us. Yet again I must stress that this point’s league is unofficial but I can guarantee you that N. Favager and son definitely won the point’s league! Shotton HS would also like to thank Ray and Glenys for coming down and judging tonight.
Away from the shows now, if any people who read this column are computer literate and I’m sure many are I bet you will have logged onto the “Pigeon Chat Forum” and was created by Andy Galley of the Wall, Lunt, Green and Galley partnership. If you haven’t come across it the address is www.pigeonchatforum.com. It is an absolute mine of information and has everything you can ever want to do with pigeons. It has a page of general chat about pigeons where everything and anything is discussed; it also has a swap shop, weather sites, a page for pigeon health, a results page, an auction page, a scribe’s room where scribes can post their articles. To ensure that everything is above board and properly run, the forum is watched over by a team of moderators who are; Andy Galley (The Boss), Mark Evans (of M & D. Evans fame), Chris Balson (The Dark Destroyer), Jeanette Taylor (Lancashire Life’s lovely scribe), Alan Wilkins (The Blade), Mike Lycett (The Rugeley Assassin!) and finally, Gregory Large. I highly recommend that if you have a computer and have access to the internet that you log on to this website, it’s the first site that I log on to every day.
I had a lovely letter the other day from a former Flint HS member, Ron Williams. Ron now resides in Cumbria, the other side of Morecambe. Ron went on to say that he is glad that someone is now covering the Deeside area and was disappointed when JR packed in scribing. Ron has purchased some birds locally from such fanciers as Nigel Wright (D. Wright and son) and P. Bates and son (the chip shop boys) and likes to look out for the who is winning. Ron has one hen from Nigel which has won straight away and said he was pleased when Nigel won the 2006 Gold Ring race from Eastbourne. Ron’s son in law is none other than Flint’s Mark Worral of G. Worral and son fame, these lads are very good fliers and I am sure they’ve supplied you with some good pigeons Ron? Ron used to work with local legend, Ken Richardson and had some good birds off him as well. Ron also mentions that he is pestered by the dreaded peregrine falcon and that spoils racing for him (unfortunately we hear of it far too often these days). It was nice to hear from Ron and I hope that I can make this column as interesting as possible.
I recently attended the Chester and District (2 Bird) Specialist Club AGM the other day with my dad and had a very nice surprise that evening. My dad was presented with a lovely plaque which was thanks from the club for his services as a secretary for five years before he had to retire from ill health. Personally, I thought this was a lovely gesture from the club as my dad put his heart and soul into the job and I know he was deeply touched. Unfortunately the club made one massive mistake this evening, they voted for Jeff Lawless to go on the committee!!! You can look out now lads, you can’t shut him up!! But they also seen sense as they also voted me onboard, this is probably because they want me to keep an eye on Jeff! Only joking mate! The meeting itself went along without a hitch and was very well chaired by the Chairman, Pete Robinson and secretary, Barry Maidment.
Note for your diary!
I received a phone call yesterday from Dave Hughes (Hughes Bros of the Rhos HS) to tell me that there is a sale to be held at the Hafod club in Rhos for the Hope House Hospice Appeal on Saturday, March 24th. Unfortunately due to the problems last year with the bird flu situation they cancelled the sale but Dave informed me that there is definitely a sale this year. So if you are interested in donating a young bird or two for a very worthwhile cause give either Dave a ring on (01978) 841889 or Martin Wright (01978) 845121 or Nigel Wright (01978) 842246. There has been an incredible amount of winners that have sprung up from this sale and I for one will definitely be travelling up with my cheque book (unless the missus spots me!) I’m sure there will be people from everywhere pledging youngsters.
