Mid Cheshire
The Mid Cheshire Fed birds look to be on a much straighter line for most races this year and this is thought to be down to the Kingsway club being the biggest sender by a long way. This year this is a cracking club to be competing in sending as many as 600 birds to a race which is the type of club we would all like to race in or at least most good fanciers would.
Mr & Mrs Dave Healey took the red card in the Middlewich FC Cheltenham race when 12 sent 171 birds with a 2yo blue hen raced on the widowhood that was also 17th fed. Dave was saying he cannot get the cocks in when they return from the races they are coming back and clapping round as if they are enjoying it as if they have been let out for a daily exercise and the first cock to go through the trap in this race had been home for 7mins. 2nd club 18th fed goes to Alan Groom on 1820ypm ahead of W Wilson & Son 3rd recording a vel of 1799ypm. The Mid Cheshire fed saw 69 members send 1057 birds liberated at 8.30am in a south west wind. The top spot has gone around more this year than in the previous two seasons and this week it was Malcolm Hewitt from Rudheath who topped the list.
Meanwhile in the Acton Bridge club 118 birds were entered in the race from Cheltenham to be liberated in a south west wind. 1st Curtis-Wall-Lunt with a 2yo cock "617" (see photo) who is a previous fed winner also 3rd Combine against over 6,000 birds and is a direct son of the extremely good "Box 9 Pair" breeders of many winners. The partnership is then 3rd with a yearling blue cock from their Leo Hereman stock are also 4th club with "Arena 02" (see photo) a cracking hen who was also 1st Combine 5,464 birds and R.P.R.A. Award winner in 2016.
In the Middlewich 5B this week’s winners are Mark & Heather Smith who clocked a 5yo blue cock on 1791ypm to also collect 2nd SWCF when 67 sent 892 birds liberated at 7.30am in a south wind. The fed winners are Mr & Mrs Carl Rowledge. 2nd & 3rd club go to K Bosson & Son whose first is a blue cock, they record vels of 1762/1747ypm. Alan Woodcock is 4th on 1740ypm. Thought by now I would have been getting more info from the two local clubs but it is not happening.
This was the weekend of the first National FC race of the season and all I was hearing was the result is not up yet after the change of rules. Although I am no longer a member I still take an interest in it because it should be the premier club in the country and I would think most fanciers like to see what is going on in the results. In the modern day of racing pigeons, I think the new rule is something that will not make any difference because with mobile phones anyone will find out times if they want to. I remember before the pigeons went on line the late Denis Gleave could tell us who was winning the race long before we went to the clock station and there were not the mobiles about that we have now. Keeping the provisional result off the Internet is not going to stop anyone cheating; common sense tells me that if they want to cheat they will. There is so much technology about communications are better than they have ever been so not publishing the times as they come in is a backward step. I understand why it has been done but realistically it will make no difference at all. What I will say is this is what most others are saying or at least probably thinking. Well done to Burtonwood’s R & B Smith on a great weekends racing in the National FC and the MNFC.
Westlands
