Leicester Continental Club 2017
Presentation and Panel Night
For the fourth consecutive season the Leicester Continental Club held its annual Presentation night alongside its panel and as always we had a cracking night, it was very well supported by many local fanciers, and some from further field! Many thanks to John Wheatcroft, Ralph Jepson and the rest of the Nottinghamshire fellowship for making the journey down the M1 to support our club.
We are not really sure what more we can offer to get a few more bums on seats to be honest, whether the event needs to be a little earlier in the season we are not sure but it could be something which we explore next season. The Old Aylestone is an excellent venue, the panels we have had have been absolutely second to none, and to get a full fish and chips supper including in the entry fee of £5 is incredible value! But hey-ho, we enjoyed our evening at the start of April and will continue to do so.
The night kicked off with our Chairman Chris Sutton introducing our excellent panel. We were blessed to have both Stuart Wilcox and Dave Staddon make the journey up from the Bristol area, they supplied us with some enlightening information on not just their own methods, ambitions and goals but also on some of their close friends from the UK and the Continent. Incredibly, in just 4 seasons of running this event we have had Mark Gilbert, Roger Lowe, Frank Bristow, Gareth Watkins, Ray Strawbridge and now Stuart and Dave to sit on our panels, does it get any better? Frank loved it that much that he did us the honour of coming back this year to present our prizes and in the half time interval we presented the prizes, drew the raffle, auctioned off some young birds and had a bite to eat, it was a very busy and enjoyable evening as you can imagine!
John Staddon, Frank Bristow and Stuart Wilcox
Stuart and Dave then continued the insights, Chris does an excellent job in chairing the panel night, making sure that all the fanciers who are there on the night leave with some “food for thought” in relation to their own management of the birds in the various lofts around the Midlands area.
The Club continues to offer solid competition for all it’s members, we have Section winners galore within our ranks and it must be one of the most difficult clubs to win. One thing is a certainty, if you win the Leicester Continental Club you will not be a million miles in your given Section, and on many occasions you will have a good one in the Open result as well! As for this years prize winners, the Super League Title went right down to the wire, Jerry Wright just pipping John Murphy to the coveted trophy by 11 points, as well as winning The Thurso Cup for most points combined from Ancenis and Bordeaux. In 3rd place was Derek Leitch on 1404 points, the battle of the Nuneaton Boys was won by Johnny Gilbert, finishing some 56 points clear of Mick Lennon in 5th. Crossley and Truszowski from the South East Section were in 6th place, just ahead of their fellow South East Section partnership of J&T Gateley. Another South West Leicestershire fancier who flies in the Nuneaton Club is Rob Glover, he comes in with 988 points in 8th place, then Sturgess, Son and Grandson in 9th. Sneaking into the final Top 10 League Position was the Glenfield outfit of Chris Watts, an excellent effort from Chris considering he holidayed halfway through the season last year!
Guest, Frank Bristow presenting prizes and trophies to:
Chris Watts - Derek Leitch - Jerry Wright (Winner of Thurso Cup and Super League trophy)
John Murphy - Mick Lennon - Crossley and Truszowski
J&T Gateley - Rob Glover
The membership has become even stronger this year with some more Section winning members joining our ranks. Apart from the odd obvious absentee, I am sure you will agree that our membership reads as a “Who’s Who” of MNFC fanciers in this part of the world! Mick Lennon, Jerry Wright, Chris Sutton, Derek Leitch, Johnny Gilbert, John Murphy, Summers Brothers to name but a few! Add to those a Section winning Mick Beadle and Daughter amongst many others and you will see that performing well in this club alone is not easy, let alone worrying about the Section or Open result.
As always we are competing alongside the full MNFC programme, with the prestigious Gold Race still being in place for each and every race we have. This is the Single Bird Nomination event that we run where some serious prize money can be won, along with those valuable league points that are on offer for EVERY SINGLE BIRD that is clocked in the single bird event or in our “2 bird no nomination required” race that runs alongside the Gold Race. This is known as the Silver Race and whilst it is not as prestigious as the Gold Race it still takes some winning!
Hopefully by the time this goes to press the first MNFC will have been a success, and I will be close to compiling the first result for what is already our fourth season, where does the time again!
Good Luck everybody.
John Ghent
Secretary and Press Officer for Leicester Continental Club
