A TRIBUTE TO PHIL HALFORD OF FULHAM.
I was very sad to receive a phone call from my good friend, Dom McCoy recently, informing me that the outstanding pigeon racer, Phil Halford had passed away in his sleep, several days before Christmas. Phil was a ‘life times’ pigeon racer and recorded countless premier performance over his many years in the sport. I met him many times and found him to be a smashing man and very knowledgeable about successful pigeon racing at all distances. One of Phil’s best recent performances was when the Three Borders Federation were at Wincanton for their third young bird race of the season and members sent 791 birds, for what turned out to be a fast fly home. It was certainly the Richmond clubs day, with several of their members dominating the Federation result, including: Phil Halford winning 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th Federation Phil’s performance flying into Fulham and taking all those premier positions was outstanding! His Federation winner, which was 24 ypm in front of his next arrival, was his Gaby Vandenabeele blue hen, ‘Lucy’, and she was raced natural to her perch. At the time it was congratulation to Phil on his brilliant performance!
Phil Halford was born in Fulham and had his first pigeon when he was eleven years old, which was a red chequer stray and at that time had no idea about racing the birds. At the age of 13 he took up the hobby properly and read the ‘Racing Pigeon’ paper to try and gain some knowledge of the sport, but picked a lot by talking to the good old flyers. In the early days, Billy Britnall, David and Owen Gilbert and Freddie Reed were always there and helped him out a lot. The pigeon racer, Bryn James of Fulham went to school with Phil and they were still good friends up to Phil’s passing. Phil’s father kept pigeons as a boy, but never raced them. He was a lot of help for the young Phil and taught him to keep the birds and loft clean at all times, which was the practice he still carries out until the end. He had been in the sport of pigeon racing fifty years and his first birds were obtained from Ted Murphy of Battersea and Billy Britnall of Ewell. One of the first from Ted Murphy was a Van Hee cock and this game pigeon won many positions for Phil, including 1st ‘two bird’ Guernsey race. The Billy Britnall pigeons were Harry Scott of West Drayton Busschaerts and out of the early ones there was a red hen, named ‘The Red Hen’, bred from the stock bird, ‘Unrung Mealy’. This ‘once in a life time’ pigeon never raced, but ever year until she died bred winners for the Halford loft. The first winner bred from ‘The Red Hen’ was when she was mate to the very highly rated light chequer cock called the ‘Showman’. Phil’s loft was shelf built in Rannock Road, Battersea and his first pigeon club was the ‘City Arms’ in Hammersmith. He told me it was a great little club, with very good flyers and the local milkman, Bill Lamb, was the secretary. Fred Potter worked out the velocities on checking night and he thought Phil to do the velocities and set the clocks. Phil said, ‘in those early days everyone had cars to train their pigeons in and all me and mate, Bryn, had was push bikes. I wished I was bit older and could have driven! I use to walk four miles to Putney train station with my basket of trainers, because they didn’t allow you on the bus with the pigeons’. What a great fancier!
Phil raced his old birds on the natural, but said at the time that he would like a go at the widowhood system to cut down on his work load in the loft. He kept sixteen pairs of racer and paired up after he returns from the BHW Blackpool Show in January. Phil said recently, ‘I’m an old age pensioner and have been in the sport a long time, but I still get a big thrill out of pigeon racing and even with all the ups and downs, I still look forward to my racing every week’. The main family of pigeons kept were Gaby Vandenabeele, of which he had fifteen pairs of stock birds and he maintained he was very hard on breeders that don’t produce winners consistently. Phil’s loft was 40ft long and 5ft 6ins wide and just fitted in to his little garden in Fulham. When I say just fitted, the loft ran down the garden and the width of the loft was the same width as the garden, with the front trapping bays being up against the garden boundary wall. Needless to say, Phil had very good next door neighbours! The self-built loft had five sections to house the old bird racers, stock birds and young birds. Phil told me’ ‘the most important factor in good loft design in a good garden. My birds user the garden next door! My next door neighbour loves the pigeons and lets them use their garden to rack around in’. Phil didn’t like deep litter on the loft floors, but maintained it is each to his own and cleaned out every day, as his father taught him. Speaking generally, Phil had always been interested in sport and likes Judo, Rugby and Shooting. He loved showing his birds in the winter months and enjoyed his Sunday morning at the Spelthorne Open Shows. He judged at the RPRA Southern Region Show in 2018 and told me I filmed him on the day, so he must be on the Keith Mott YouTube channel! Phil liked to do his fair share for the Richmond SRFC and was their ring secretary and Three Border Federation delegate. He admires the workers in the sport, including his late friend, George Kimpton and his great friend, the Three Borders Federation convoyer, Don McCoy. Our sincere condolences to Phil’s family and friends. Phil Halford RIP.
KEITH MOTT (DECEMBER 2025)
