Watchfield & The Vale Flying Club
*Remember there are No Secrets from a Bottle, just Hardwork, Dedication & Determination*
Well folks here we are again and its now the 5th June, i hope things are progressing well within your lofts and things are going to plan with your results and achievements so far.
Some bad news this week, saw one of our oldest founder members passing away. Lou Hamlin was a wonderful gentleman of the sport and former club chairman and past secretary who will be deeply missed by all members & friends at the club.
This week we have entered 3 birds into the NFC Nantes race and 6 into the club race from Cholet with the Wessex combine and the remaining few into the land race from Kingsdown.
8th Race Weekend, Kingsdown & Cholet 04/06/11.
Up and about early on Saturday morning, got all the loft chores done and out of the way, soon had the phonecall to say the birds were on there way with the combine going at 0605hrs, the national at 0630hrs and the kingsdown birds away at 0715hrs. So it was out with the calculator and work out some velocities for these races which are not going to be easy this weekend due to the strong north east winds and predictions of a lot of empty boxes from the channel races. So with approx ETA’s being drafted i wanted arrivals from Kingsdown at 0920hrs, combine at 1340hrs and the national at 1410hrs.
So i set up the ets, put the kettle on and prepared for the wait, the wind was really blowing here and we had heavy showers around 9am which were obviously heading towards the returning kingsdown birds due to the wind direction, at 0922 we had our first arrivals who after wasting some time were recorded at 09.23.54 and 09.23.57, with others returning at 0930hrs they came well....then it was time to carry out some loft chores around the loft to pass the time whilst we had a few hours to pass. So i decided to trim all the growth from the trees surrounding the lofts and overhanging this was fine until the ladder slipped and i was on my back (this hurt and knocked the wind from my sails), so that was that for an hour or so the ladders were put away, as i’m writing these notes and 7am on the Sunday morning i am extremely tender on the legs and back. Clare & Mia witnessed this and rushed over to pick me up, and after finishing laughing, they called me all the names imaginable, but there i was on my feet and definitely used all my luck for the day as i know that so easily things could have been different so i’m lucky really.
Anyhow after some rest, we had to get ready for the channel birds and what a disaster this turned out to be, this will go down as a “bleak day” in the history of channel races for returns were absolutely shocking, there were some fantastic performances but up in the national by some superb flyers & birds but the majority of people were very late with minimal retrunee’s if any at all. Why!! Yes the wind was strong in the channel and pressune they got pushed along to the west country but the national winner was in Bristol and 3rd open was dead central so that puts that theory into a hat.....pressume we will never know.
Anyhow back to the race and we eventually clocked from the combine at 1705hrs & 1852hrs and got a returnee from the national at 1805hrs and that was it, we were 6 birds missing incuding some big winners from Bergerac last year so were are they!!
At the club that night the result from the Kingsdown race was a good one for M/M Roy & Shiela Titcombe timing a 4y old red cock on widowhood to record 1239.2 followed by top sprinter Ken Thorpe who timed a 4y old black widowhood cock on 1232.9, E Smith & Baker timed a 2y old cheq widowhood cock to record 1220.8 and we mopped up the 4th & 5th places with two yearlings on natural firstly a cheq hen bred by Ian Young of south shields who recorded 1218.2 and then a cheq gaby vandenabeele cock who was 2nd club 3rd fed last week on 1217.7.
Cholet, saw a superb and richly deserved win for Martin Fulcher timing a blue cock at 1623hrs to record 891.2ypm, R&P Habgood timed a 2 y old dark pied cock to record 860.3 for 2nd club, we dropped in with 3rd & 5th club with our 2yr old cheq batenburg cock sitting 3 days on 814.3 and our good 2y old gaby cock “05” to record 702.9 and Keith Palmer finished 4th club with a 6y old blue cock recording 730.1 and that was it only 5 birds recorded home on the day for a shocking race return wise with the winner flying ten and half hours and the 5th placed bird flying nearly thirteen hours for a 300mile race......and with Saintes and Bergerac still to come, god only knows whats going to happen then.
Well that’s it for this week, try hard, work harder, be happy and good returns.
Any news/views to Mark Brown
Email -
mb1973@hotmail.co.ukTel - 07593 279 375
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The N.E.H.U race from Melton Mowbray 21/4/2012 was won by Peel bros of South Shields, they took 1st club 1st fed, also taking 2nd and 4th club and 15 of the 25 birds clocked in the club......well done Peel brothers.
