Alan Greenslade Celebrates His Birthday in Style... Winning 1st & 2nd Sw Glam Fed From Folkestone

JOHN DAVID'S

RAMBLINGS

Alan Greenslade celebrates his birthday in style... winning 1st & 2nd SW Glam Fed from Folkestone

I have known Alan for a very long time through this great sport of ours and for sheer consistency of performances over a fifty year span there are few fanciers in Wales that can equal his record.

Alan started with pigeons when he was 16 years of age and flew in the club based at the “Ivor Arms Hotel” in Brynsadler in 1958 which was made up of 35 members of Llantrisant and Llanharry at that time. He was encouraged to set clocks by Eddie Durham in those early days. Prior to that Alan became interested in pigeons at the tender age of 10 when he would sit with Sid Holder a top fancier in those days who had his loft alongside a plot of land tended to by his grandfather on the side of “The Graig” mountain in Talbot Green. Eventually Alan bought his first pigeon loft off Dennis Flowers and this was erected on the allotments situated in an elevated position above Llantrisant common.

Alan proudly showing his Fed winners to Carrie-Ann

Over a thirty year span Alan flew to this location and won more than his share of club and Federation prizes. One notable performance in those early days was when he topped the South West Glamorgan Fed from Thurso; there were only seven birds clocked on the day in the Fed. The main strain kept at that time was from the late Billy Taylor and Vandenbrooke de Weerd, which won at all distances including from Thurso and Lerwick.

It was only the natural system that was used in the loft in those days but in 1992 Alan decided to move his birds to his home in Greenlands Road, Southgate, Nr Llantrisant where he constructed his own loft. The loft itself was originally 20 ft long but since then has been extended to three sections, the one on the left for eight pairs of stock birds, the middle section for the twenty two widowhood cocks and on the right side forty young birds are housed. The loft was built with a north-easterly aspect governed by the location of the back garden and as a consequence the young birds enjoy the morning sunshine which brings them into condition.

The old birds are paired around Blackpool weekend 23rd January and rear a pair of young birds each before going back down on eggs for eight days before being separated again for the widowhood system to start. The hens are shown before the race for twenty to thirty minutes and on the return of the cocks the hens remain with them for a minimum of three hours or longer if the race is hard.

Alan in his widowhood section

The birds are broken down with Jerry Plus Saturday after the race and Sunday morning before returning to their normal widowhood Prestige Versela Laga mixture. The birds are given a soupspoon of corn morning and night which equates to approximately to one and a half ounces a day.

The birds are exercised twice a day for an hour but are never forced to fly as Alan was quick to point out that you don’t want the birds landing on other houses in the residential estate where he lives for obvious reasons. Alan said that this has been the worst year for hawks that he can ever recall having lost six around the loft and several others from Magor training.

When asked who has given him the most help and influence in the sport Alan without hesitation said Max Jones of Cosley, West Midlands who he met through Ronnie Shaw of Llantrisant and from whom he has had some very good birds.   

I believe much of Alan`s success is not only through good birds but also down to regularity of feeding, exercise, cleaning etc which is always done to time and therefore becomes routine.

The Fed winner from Folkestone

Alan is generally a quiet fancier and has always been a worker in the club, doing more than his fair share of club duties. Having said that, he always likes things done right as far as club rules are concerned and does not tolerate fools lightly, so much so that he is not afraid to speak his mind forcibly if the need arises.

At the time of my visit Alan was celebrating his 69th birthday with a wonderful performance from Folkestone, the longest inland race of the season where he was 1st and 2nd Llantwit Fardre club and 1st and 2nd SW Glamorgan Federation. The Fed winner, a blue cock (Soontjens x SVR from Keith Goodenough sale) bred in 2009, has now won three fed cards having previously won 1st Marlborough 16th Fed as a YB (1872 birds) and 8th club, 14th Fed Devizes in 2010. The 2nd Fed winner was a dark chequer two year old cock who has now six fed cards to his credit including as a YB 5th Marlborough 23rd Fed; 32nd Fed Marlborough 2 (2,278 birds) and 5th club Guildford 1, 13th Fed. In 2010 it was 2nd club, 21st Fed Basingstoke 1 and 5th club 34th Fed Basingstoke 2. His breeding is SVR via Clive Akers of Tonyrefail and Krauth via Max Jones.

Alan likes to catch his birds in the boxes before swiping the ETS pad fixed in the wall panel accessed from both sides

Before I left I asked Alan did he prefer the days when his loft was high up in Llantrisant where the birds had a wonderful natural environment with super views on race days of birds arriving home or his much more limited home environment which was clearly much more restricted in nature. Alan replied that he has never once regretted moving his birds back to his home of the last 30 years as it is so much easier tending to the birds from home. He added that by having the birds away from home inevitably means you spend long hours morning and night away from your family and of course in long difficult races this can mean many hours, even days away, often in adverse weather conditions and even on good races some birds may turn up late at night or in the early morning and often need special attention to aid the recovery purpose. His old loft however is still in its old location and is now being used by Nigel Holloway, who is highly successful in his own right, as fanciers will recall from a previous report!

John David with Alan at his home

As I pen these notes on Monday 20th June by some strange quirk of fate I hear the Welsh Combine are returning the birds from Reims for liberation at Folkestone tomorrow because of adverse weather conditions at the race point. Alan’s two Federation winners are among the convoy and I wonder can they repeat their previous success from this race point? The odds of this happening of course are very slim because the weather conditions will be different and the stress of moving pigeons after a holdover can upset and cause stress to our feathered friends let alone the form of the loft. But it is certainly a possibility, who knows, and I will certainly let readers know how they get on in my next report.

John David's daughter Ruth and g.daughter Carrie-Ann relaxing in Alan's garden