Very true Alan, way back then, they were testing their pigeons . Bring back that mentality and we would have a better sport. Whats up nowadays is more people are into sprint and middle distance races. When I started in pigeons, 1973, everybody went to the Gold Cup race from France. That was everybody's ultimate goal , to score in this race. Now, you have folk bragging about getting a ticket at 300 mls :-/ If their was a 1000 mile race on the SNFC calendar , then we would be back to being undoubtedly the best organisation in Britain