The Joe Murphy Column Joke's and all.

The Joe Murphy Column Joke's and all.

The 2020 season started on 13^th June with most federations waiting until the Scottish Government had given the go ahead. Angus federation were Training   from Otterburn and Kevin checked the weather forecast for the weekend which was somewhat dubious and decided to keep his birds in the loft. The forecast was for mist and fog coming in from the North Sea which was to last over the whole weekend. However other fanciers did go and the Saturday was a hold over and the convoy were liberated at 12 noon on the Sunday. I have heard that some fanciers never had a bird home on the day from this 98 mile distance. Birds arrived the following days but many others returned later in the week when the weather improved. I also heard that South Lanarkshire liberated at Ridsdale at 4-45 on the Saturday and this turned out to be quite an erratic race with some fanciers having only 4 birds home out of 37 entries, and others with 5 out of 50. Lanarkshire liberated at Annick on Sunday at 11-15 and it was the same story with the best returns I heard was 26 home from an entry of 45 and the worst I heard was of 29 birds home from an entry of 90, what a start to the season for this fancier; the first race and 2/3^rd of his team spending the night out. Let us hope the majority of these pigeon have made it home by now. I have also noticed that the SNFC report in the press saying ‘following discussions the officials and committee have proposed racing from Maidstone on 25th July and Reims (Gold Cup) on 31st July. Please note these arrangements are subject to government restrictions & race marking/transportation arrangements and may be subject to change’. I also noticed that the SNRPC have put forward the following race programmes to their members for the 2020 season. With their 1^st race being from Billericay on Saturday 11^th July then the Maidstone race on Friday 17^th of July with their Arras race on Friday 24^th of July with an alternative of having a race from Battle on Saturday 24th July. They did state that these programmes will remain provisional at this stage as they are subject to getting approval to start racing by mid-June at the latest. If they don’t get started until the 20th June they would propose putting the above programme back a week with Arras moving to the 31st July. As usual they advise their members to consult the website for further information and marking station guidance procedures. I have to say that the SNRPC programme seemed to be more suited to fanciers needs and at least gives the pigeons a chance to build up fitness prior to going over the English Channel. It the birds have a good race on 11^th July then they can be jumped into the Arras race which is in 2 weeks on the 24^th or if fanciers wanted they could go to both nationals into Maidstone the following week. However many fanciers that I have spoken too who are members of the SNFC will not be sending their birds to Reims as they feel their birds will NOT have had enough work or time on the wing prior to this 580+ miles race point. One fancier said to me ‘Joe I have one bird going for a SNFC Gold Award and another 2 going for Silver Awards but they will NOT be going to Reims’. I would rather just race them in the club and maybe out to Maidstone then stop them for the year. I would rather do this than throw these good pigeons away by jumping them into Reims. Plus there is no way you can send birds to Maidstone on the 25^th June and say they come the following day, and then 2 days later basket them to go to Reims for the 31^st, this is ‘callousness’ and I don’t keep pigeons to treat them like this. I have always been a national member up until I stopped racing. I was brought up with my dad in the 1950’s looking forward to having birds to go to the SNFC. While this year is unlike any other that the sport has seen, I am aware of how desperate fanciers are at getting their birds going and looking forward to the racing, when safe to do so. I think the problem for many fanciers is they want to test their birds out as best as they can and for distance fliers that means trying to build them up and get them race ready for the long races. I think we all appreciate the challenges facing officials this season and trying to arrange a race programme in line with Government guidance. However, for many of the long distance flyers the chance to send them to an inland race to get them race ready for the main 500/600 mile race won’t happen with the proposed programme. It will be interesting to see if this back to back programme will have on the overall entries. A two week gap could provide the SNFC with two bumper entries. An inland race with 5000/8000 birds would be something special especially if two weeks later (obviously, dependent upon returns from the inland race) could allow us to see record entries to the Gold Cup of possibly 5000 birds. Now that would be like old times where those numbers were the norm for the Gold Cup race. Fanciers are going to have to work their birds hard to catch up on their fitness to make these distance races in 2 weeks when this article appears. All I can say is good luck to them, and their birds. Margaret and I have not been out of our house and garden for 13 weeks so I’m glad that I’m not racing my pigeons in today’s climate.

Articles

I have had a few complimentary phone calls on my 2 articles in this month’s June issue of the Pictorial. These are on Sinclair Thomson & son Sinclair junior from Port Seton and Charlie & son Glen Cameron of Arbroath. Both lofts have shown outstanding consistency during the past few years with their team of pigeons and deserve the publicity for their endeavours. I have stated above that I have always been a national man and I believe I have demonstrated this by the amount of publicity I have given the club and their members over the years. I would not like to count the amount of ‘Good SNFC Birds’ I have looked up in the national results and highlighted these in my weekly column. I love to highlight these special performances so that fanciers throughout the country and world know we in Scotland have some excellent long distance pigeons, I hope you agree, and hope you have enjoyed reading about them just as much as I have had on researching and writing about them.

Joe’s Joke

Received an email from Val who wrote; ‘Hi Joe, I absolutely love your page in the British Homing World, look forward to your Joke every week, simply the best Keep up them coming Joe’ x Here is Val’s Joke.

A fat lady has lost her case in a magistrate’s court after she tried to sue NHS Medical Centre after her husband went in for an operation which left him unable to have sex with her afterwards. The lady said to reporters outside court, ‘Me and my husband have been having sex through our life, until he went into hospital and had his operation, now he is not interested in me and it’s all down to them. The surgeon, who performed the operation, attended the court to give evidence and said to the court, ‘All we did was remove his cataracts’.

Please continue to keep the news flowing; to Joe Murphy Mystical Rose Cottage 2 Flutorum Avenue Thornton by Kirkcaldy KY1 4BD or phone 01592 770331 or Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. REMEMBER THE J IN THE MIDDLE or you can also view online editions on: www.elimarpigeons.com www.fancierchat.co.uk www.pigeon-chat.co.uk - www.Pigeonbasics.com - Pigeon Racing the Basics! - thecanadianpigeoninternational.com www.internationalracingpigeon.com or

https://sites.google.com/site/internationalracingpigeon/

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