Keith Mott
Writes about winning fanciers past and present
The Lion Brewery Midweek Club
The ‘Lion Brewery’ recently held its AGM at the pub headquarters and officers for the 2012 season were elected as follows: President – John Wills: Chairman – Mike Armitage: Treasurer – Lyndsay Armitage: Secretary – Mick Worsfold. Mick Worsfold has done a sterling job as club secretary for several seasons and he was given a big vote thanks for keeping the club on the ‘straight and narrow’. Birdage prices for all inland races will remain the same as the 2011 season, at 60p per bird and it was also decided that the convoyer must leave the ‘Lion Brewery’ at 11.00hrs for the Hamworthy races. The members will be offered to have their birds marked in to one basket, as per RPRA recommendation, for races in the new season at £15 per crate, and was suggested to try and eliminate young bird sickness ect. The club is holding five open races from Guernsey in the 2012 season, in partnership with the Bromley Mid-Week Club and Brighton & Worthing 5 bird Club, and these will be flown mostly on Bank Holiday Mondays. The open race birdage price will be £2.50 per bird, with ‘Lion Brewery’ members paying an extra 50p per bird to compete in a club section race. The 2012 season will see the ‘Lion Brewery’ pay out one loft, on position prize money in club races, but race diplomas will be presented as per the race result.
The ‘Lion Brewery’ Midweek Club at Ash had another successful season racing out of Hamworthy and Guernsey in 2011 and one of the main plus’ for me with the ‘Lion Brewery’ Midweek Club is they race mark on Tuesday evening and early Wednesday morning for all Wednesday inland races and my birds can have a good 100 miles fly and not have a night in the basket. Great training for the long distance events! This 100 miles mid-week racing is proving to be a great help in getting pigeons ready for the main National and Classic events and ‘Lion Brewery’ members have figured high in several open results in the 2009 season. The subs are £25.00 and all young fancier under 18 years of age don’t pay any sub, but pay the full price for their birdage each week. That’s another plus for the ‘Lion Brewery’ Midweek Club in my reasoning, is having Mick Worsfold as club secretary! Mick Worsfold is a ‘straight down the line’; no nonsense sort of gentleman and every thing is spot on with him. We have been good friends for many years and must say it’s great to have him at the helm! Mick races his pigeons in partnership with his wife, Pauline, at their home in Bisley and their record Channel racing over the years is second to none, winning 1st open Combine (twice), 1st open British Barcelona Club (twice) and 1st open London & South East Classic Club (twice).
The ‘Lion Brewery’ is all set for the forthcoming 2012 racing season with over 55 members on the books and has set up the race programme, which is as follows: 11th April – Hamworthy: 18th April – Hamworthy: 25th April – Hamworthy: 2nd May – Hamworthy: 7th May – Guernsey (open): 16th May – Hamworthy: 23rd May – Hamworthy: 30th May – Hamworthy: 4th June – Guernsey (open): 13th June – Hamworthy: 20th June – Hamworthy: 27th June – Guernsey (open): 4th July – Hamworthy: 11th July – Hamworthy (any age): 18th July – Hamworthy (any age): 25th July – Hamworthy (any age): 1st August – Hamworthy: 8th August – Hamworthy: 15th August – Hamworthy: 22nd August – Hamworthy: 27th August – Guernsey (open): 5th September – Hamworthy: 12th September – Hamworthy: 19th September – Guernsey (open). That’s a long ol’ programme of Wednesday racing for the lads to enjoy! The competition in the ‘Lion Brewery’ is ‘red hot’ for the fanciers who enjoy inland racing and is brilliant training for the Channel racing enthusiasts.
When I recently met up with my ol’ mucker and ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week President Johnny Wills I asked him how he felt about winning the 2009 L&SECC Tours Yearling Derby. His reply was, ‘I’m highly delighted, as I was in the processes of building a new team and this Classic win marks the start of a new era for the Wills loft. My great old family of Ian Benstead are still brilliant for the Barcelona job, but these days you need a faster type pigeon for the 550 mile races, so I’m creating a second family from gift birds from good friends, the late great Brian Long and Brian Ledbeater. These two gentlemen are two of the best pigeon fanciers I’ve ever met and they have gifted me pigeons from their very best. My late friend, Brian Long, left me some pigeons, including birds out of his famous £55,000 pigeon ‘Lucas’, but I still love my old Ian Benstead pigeons which are still winning well up to Barcelona’.
I hadn’t seen John for a while, but he has given up the good life and lost a bit of weight and looked in top form. After his 25 years hard work on premier club committees John has made the decision to give ‘pigeon politics’ and start enjoying racing his pigeons again. With his new start Johnny has installed ETS in his loft and thinks it is brilliant, and would not be with out now. He would like to thank Mark Gilbert for coming to his Frimley home and installing the new system for him, he did a great job.
John Wills is a man I have known since the early 1970s and who is now one of the most respected fanciers in the world of long distance pigeon racing. In the early 1970's he was a footloose and fancy free young lad, and was a “hot arse” trying to win sprint, club and federation races every week. John Wills lived in Feltham and raced in the West Middlesex Federation at that time. I can remember one snowy winter day in 1979, when I had arranged a meeting with John at his loft, for an article photo shoot, and had to bang on the front door to get him out of bed! He had enjoyed some good success with his good with his good blue pied Cattrysse cock, “Billy”, who had won the longest old bird race from Bergerac. This handsome cock was bred by Johnny's dad, Bill Wills of Ealing, who was a brilliant fancier for many years in the Middlesex area. I think Billy's Bergerac win changed John's whole outlook on pigeon racing and on that cold day in 1979, he told me that he had had enough of Federation sprint racing and was going to have a go at National long distance events only. John Wills has never looked back, with the rest being history! Johnny’s Frimley loft has won countless major prizes in the long distance National and International events, including 6 times 1st open British International Championship Club (British Section of the International), 10 times 1st East of England Continental Club and 4th open NFC Pau. The Surrey loft has been in the NFC Pau result every time they have sent since 1989 and John says his pigeon management is based on commonsense.
John has had pigeons all his life, racing in the early years with his father in the Ealing Club. In later years Ian Benstead let him have birds off his best. Johnny says as a lad he used to watch Tubby Tate's pigeons whilst on his paper round and was inspired by this great fanciers performances. In the early 1980s his loft housed 20 pairs of racers and he bred as many youngsters each as he could, so he could keep his team young. The birds were raced on the natural system, with old birds going through the programme and youngsters treated lightly, with approximately three races each. Food was changed for different times of the year adding more beans as the longer races got nearer. John says he never goes on holiday as all his time is spent with his birds and the best race to win is the next one. In 1966 he bought some Cattrysse pigeons from S. Smith of Loudwater, Bucks, which won from 100 to 460 miles. In 1977 he bought a cock from Ian Benstead which bred winners straight away and since then he has obtained many birds from this long distance “master”, and founded his highly successful present day family on them. As I've previously stated John's pigeon management has no real hard and fast rules and is run on commonsense. He says, he has always trained the pigeons when he thinks it is necessary, with single ups from the south coast. John likes eyesign and pairs pigeons up clashing all their eyes, but says he has seen many good pigeons with what he regards as not very good eyesign. He likes to pair his best birds to either a pigeon out of their brother or sister, and picks out stock pigeons on performance and type. John studies each bird separately and sends them in the condition they favour. He says he has respects for many of the present day long distance fanciers, but his mentor is Ian Benstead, who is no longer in the sport. John and his wife, Rose were once the secretaries of the B.I.C.C. and John has been a Vice President, and has been on the Committee since 1984.
The ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week Club has it’s HQ at the ‘Lion Brewery’ PH set in the wonderful Surrey countryside at Ash and it is common knowledge that the pub has been run for the last 30 years by the premier pigeon racing partnership of Mike and Lyndsay Armitage, who have won both the BICC and L&SECC in recent seasons. The pub is a marking station for the NFC and BICC, and has been the home of the ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week for many years. Mike’s wife, Lyndsay, has a great interest in the pigeons and works very hard for all the clubs who are based at the pub in Ash. The very smart lofts are sited in the pub garden and Lyndsay has her loft of all white racing pigeon in the garden of the Armitage’s house next door to the ‘Lion Brewery’ and these are all bred down from gift birds from Brian Stansfield, which are thought to be the old Logan strain. Her best bird is the white hen, ‘Lottie’s Luck’, and she has won one 1st, two times 2nd and three times 3rd in the very strong mid-week club, and at the start of the 2009 season her son, another pure white pigeon, won 1st ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week from Portsmouth. Well done to Lyndsay!
London & South East Classic Club sent 2,151 young bird and old hens to Guernsey in the 2008 season and this turned out to be a wonderful end of season race for the land lord of the ‘Lion Brewery’ Public House in Ash. Mike and Lyndsay sent six widowhood hens to the old hen’s classic and had a brilliant race, timing in five of his entries to record 1st, 7th, 26th, 75th and 91st open. Wonderful pigeon racing by any ones standards! Mike’s classic winner was his good yearling blue hen, ‘LuLu’, and she was raced on Mike’s widowhood method, which he says is really a jealousy system. This game hen won the old hen’s classic by over 50 ypm and also beat the young birds classic winner! She had every ‘Lion Brewery’ Mid-Week Hamworthy race and three Federation channel races on her built up to her Classic win, and is not stranger to success having won several premier prizes for the Armitage loft. Her sire is Mike’s good racing cock, ‘Centenary Boy’, winner of 1st club, 365th open Nantes Centenary Race (65,000 birds) in 1999 and he was bred Roger Lowe’s Hartogs and Mike’s old family of Marriotts. The dam of ‘LuLu’ is one of the premier stock hens at the Ash loft, ‘The Taylor Hen’ and she was bred by Colin Taylor of Kent.
Mike has won 1st open British International Championship Club from Le Ferte Bernard in the 2000 season and has won the L&SECC three times. He started up pigeon racing in his home town of Hull over 50 years ago and has been an outstanding fancier over the years, winning many premier racing honours, including: 10th open NFC Pau, the first ten positions in an open race and 1st open Federation many times. Years ago he liked sprint racing, but is now in to channel racing with the BICC and NFC. He has been a publican for over 30 years and has been over 25 years at the ‘Lion Brewery’, a wonderful little pub set in the Surrey countryside at Ash. The ‘Lion Brewery’ is very much a pigeon pub, with several clubs being based there, including the British International Championship Club, which has been there at Ash for about twelve years. He told me when the BICC first came to the ‘Lion Brewery’ it had 164 member and now it has progressed up to over 1,300 members, which he maintains is full credit to a great management team. Mike has three lofts totalling 160 ft. smartly set in the pub garden and all the birds are trapped through open windows to the ETS system. The families raced are Fountainhead Janssens and Busschaerts, Roger Lowe’s Hartogs and the fantastic Marriotts obtained from John Grey of Hull in 1977. The Marriott pigeons have been outstanding for Mike over the years and the 8th open B.I.C.C. Le Ferte Bernard winner on that brilliant weekend was a Marriott blue chequer hen, raced on the semi-widowhood.
