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The late John Furness of Woking. In my time as a racing pigeon writer I have visited many lofts which are based on eyesign, but I think the late Johnny Furness' loft must take the cake. I have never seen so many good eyed pigeons in one loft and this had been achieved by many years study of the subject. He paired up on eyesign and said it's a method of getting the best out of your birds in the shortest time. The Furness pigeons won the Federation countless times, but in 1977 from a young bird Weymouth event, he created a record by winning the first thirteen positions in the very strong Surrey Federation, with 2,437 birds competing. The week before the race John was working away and the birds had to be kept in the loft, so on his return he gave them a 40 mile toss every day from Monday to Friday the marking day. He sent 26 birds and his heart must have been in his mouth as 16 dropped on the loft together and he managed to clock 13 to set a fantastic record at that time. My good mate, Mick Worsfold, took me to John's Knaphill home for the loft visit and as always, it rained. The Furness loft housed three main families, Hansenne, Kirkpatrick and Burghers, with the Hansenne pigeons being best for long distances and hard days. The first pigeon John handed me to inspect was his great Burghers blue chequer pied hen 'Melody', winner of: 1976: 1st club Weymouth, 2nd club Exeter, 3rd club Plymouth, 1st club, 8th Federation, 11th Combine Wadebridge; 1977: 2nd club Weymouth, 1st club Exeter, 1st club, 3rd Federation, 41st Combine Laval, 5th club Angers, 1st club Weymouth; 1978: 2nd club Vire, 3rd club Laval, 2nd club Exeter, 1st club Exeter, 1st club Weymouth, 5th club Bergerac and she bred winners. 'Melody' was a wonderful hen, handling medium appled bodied and was a grand-daughter of John's champion Burghers stock hen 'Bernadette'. The stock hen was bred by Bernard Burghers and was the dam of fourteen 1st prize winners, including 1st and 2nd Combine and five Federation winners. Next to hand was a handsome yearling dark chequer cock named 'Eric' and he had recorded in his short racing career, 1st club Niort (350 miles), three times 2nd club and four times 3rd club. John's neat racing loft was 25ft long, with drop hole trapping; the 15 pairs of stock birds were housed in two smaller lofts. The whole loft was paired up about 14th February and about 40 youngsters were bred each year. The birds were raced on the natural system, with a lot of attention paid to correct feeding and training. John said he liked hens for the longer races, sitting about 12 to14 days and thought it's important to look for fitness in your birds before entering them in the long events. He doesn't worry unduly about the moult, as he says it's a natural condition. He was born in Capetown, South Africa and his father kept pigeons but didn't race. John started up at the age of seven and joined a boy's pigeon club, flying races up to five miles. In his first proper young bird season at the age of 12 he won the young bird Average by 640 yards with only eight youngsters. This was with birds obtained from Frank Lewrey, the pre-war Woking ace. John said he served his apprenticeship under Frank Lewrey, clearing out and doing odd jobs for him. His first loft was a converted 6ft x 4ft chicken shed and he raced in the Woking Racing Pigeon Club, which was the club he raced in for over 40 years. He said Frank and the late Fred Seaman of Woking gave him a lot of help in the early days. Another outstanding racer housed in the loft was the ten year old Hansenne dark chequer hen 'Solitaire' and she was the last daughter of 'Elizabeth', Ned Rees Welsh Grand National win-ner. 'Solitaire' was medium appled bodied in the hand and had won twice 1st Federation, five times 1st club, flown Pau twice and was the dam of many winners at stock. 'Katy', a blue pied hen, was another outstanding racing Hansenne, having won seven first prizes and flown Pau twice. John maintained that good light and the correct flow of fresh air are the key factors in good loft design and said novices should not attempt to learn by their mistakes. He said he would like to revert back to rail transport, with panniers and wood chips, as he thinks peat isn't very good for the birds. The late Eric Cannon of Wormley was John's nomination for the best fan-cier in the Surrey area and says his performances in National Flying Club races over the years have been outstanding. John was the secretary of the Woking RPC and the chairman of the Surrey Federation. The birds were fed on a good mixture of beans, maize, wheat and turkey starter pellets, re-ceiving 1oz per bird. Iron tonic was given once a week and they were trapped with a little small seed. The old birds got 40 mile tosses two or three times before racing and raced up to 600 miles, with the yearlings going through to 450 miles. Youngsters were made to fly most of the young bird programme and John maintained that fly aways with youngsters were caused by overcrowding. He said consideration for the birds and attention to details are key factors on the road to success. We all make mistakes, said John, but lots of fanciers are only fanciers on Saturdays. When selecting producers, he liked medium size birds, with contrasting eye colours and said pairing two eyes which are the same will result in the youngsters having diluted eyes. I'm not an eyesign man myself, but the most unusual eye I have ever seen belonged to John's good Hansenne blue pied stock cock 'Brahah' and he told me it was a violet eyesign. 'Brahah' was the sire and grandsire of many winners up to 550 miles. John had tried latebreds in all ways, but could not do a thing with them, although he reckoned they made good stock birds. John said he didn't like deep litter and would never use it. Plenty of feeding and green stuff are the order of the day for a good moult. John Furness had a bumper season in 1979, recording many firsts including 1st club, 4th Surrey Federation, 4th SMT Combine Le Mans and 1st club, 1st Surrey Federation, 2nd SMT Combine Angers. John's Angers winner was his Hansenne blue hen 'Katrina' and she was a daughter of the good blue pied stock cock 'Brahah'. She was sent to Angers sitting 12 day old eggs and had previously won 1st club Exeter in 1979. The white Burgher hen 'Beatrix' was the 4th SMT Combine Le Mans pigeon and she was a daughter of the champion Burghers stock hen 'Bernadette'. 'Beatrix' previously won 1st club Exeter and 1st club Blandford as a youngster. For many years the SMT Combine's longest old bird race was flown from Bergerac (450 miles), but in 1987 it was flown from Marmande about 30 miles further than Bergerac. Mem-bers sent 2,852 birds for this Blue Riband race and although leading pigeons recorded over 1200ypm, day birds were very few and far between. John Furness won the Combine with his handsome two year old Burger pied cock 'Serenade'. This bird won several good positions including 2nd club Nantes in 1987. 'Serenade' was raced on widowhood and was bred from the cream of the Furness Burgers including 'Melody' and 'Bernadette'. There you have it, the late great John Furness, one of best fanciers ever in the Surrey area. Text & Photos by Keith Mott (December 2025)

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❗️ GPS Pigeon ❗️ I'll update this post with the live GPS tracking location of our "tracker doo" as and when I get a ping from its location on route home today from Tarbert 157mile, The idea is to give us some idea of the route she's taken to get home hopefully along with the main batch of birds, we get location notifications every 35 minutes roughly so I'll do my best to keep it up to date as the race unfolds,

Copied from Facebook 24th December Christmas Race - Tarbert 157 mile ❗️9:30am Liberation ❗️ Morning Guys, we have two ventures available ready to be assigned to anyone who wants them, both basketed tonight for tomorrow christmas race from Tarbert 157mile and can be viewed in the live basketing video, we're aiming for a 9:30am liberation so please just message me for any info before then to take part, Liberation to take place in tarbert at a distance of 157 mile at our usual spot along the harbour on Peir Road - PA29 6UG Weather is turning out exactly as predicted and is shaping upto be a brilliant day for it 😁 Any last minute pools please get them over asap to be included in the website update 😁 If anyone would like to guess todays velocity please just add a comment down below with you're guess in "YPM" for the chance to win two fully paid for entrys into our 2026 Summer Series, winning guesses must be within 2ypm of the winning bird to win 😁 Returns Rate, Trainer One - 60.5% Trainer Two - 81% Trainer Three - 96.8% Trainer Four - 96.5% Trainer Five - 100% Trainer Six - 100% Trainer Seven - 94.2% Trainer Eight - 98.4% Trainer Nine - 97% Activation Race - 100%

My dad'my my brotherl My self my champion hen my 2 My brother on the right

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George Baxter of Methil.is selling his 16x8ft loft with corridor £2000 OVNO PHONE 07592938512

Copied from Facebook 17th December 2025 Dumbarton Pigeon Club - Champions of 2025 Presented by John Quinn at Dumbarton Open Show Combined Champion Loft - HBW Lofts Old Bird Champion Loft - S Jones & Son Young Bird Champion Loft - Dinky Doo Lofts Well done all the winners.. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Copied from Facebook 16th December 2025 prizes where presented to winning lofts by 2025 SNFC average and double SNFC gold cup winner John Bosworth from Elphistone. During the season club members sent 8827 birds to federation races (a weekly peak of 1156) with an average of 520 birds per race. The first prize winners where as follows: F&W Robertson X4 Keith Wright X4 S&S Tierney X3 Bald & Wallace X2 With W.Pryde & Son, S McVey, Black & Coupe, W.Kinnear & Son each winning 1. Of the 17 club winners - 14 were federation toppers. In my opinion 2 stand out performances were: 1. In old birds - the Ramsgate race where Freddy & Wullie Robertson won the race by almost 1.5 hours also winning the central and east of Scotland amalgamation that day. 2. And with the young birds in the Grantham race where S&S Tierney took the first 4 in the federation with his first bird beating the next federation member by around 20 minutes. Winning old bird average, combined average, old bird KO and Barry Cryer trophy - F&W Robertson. Runner up in both combined average and young bird average - K Wright Runner up in old bird average, winner backpath lofts trophy - S&S Tierney Winning Raymond McNamee memorial trophy and young bird KO - D Brown Big slim trophy winner - Bald & Wallace 2nd division winner - A Walker 1st division winner and YB average winner - W.Kinnear & Son Winning Charlie Graham memorial for first club bird in SNFC gold cup with a fine 11th open is the former partnership of - Cameron & Winter

Copied from Facebook 15th December The 32nd Danderhall Xmas Race was held on Saturday 13th December with 204 birds competing for £3750 in pools and prize money. Big thanks to race sponsors Wullie Dunsmore, Minnie & Thomas Fraser, Jimmy Bell, Castlebrea RPC, Rod Pringle & Colin MacGregor. Also big thanks to Grace Watson for supplying the winner with cupcakes (Mad Hatter Bakers). In the past 11 races we have now had 11 different winners. Congratulations to this years winner David Brown, also runner up John Lindsay & third placed Jeff Porter.

Copied from Facebook 15th December 2025

Copied from Facebook By Brian Black How’s everyone doing. Hope all is well Yesterday I attended my club presentation and as usual it was a class couple of hrs going as smoothly as ever. Well done to all the club trophy winners 😎 Then as class as ever Barry Kinnear and Willy dunsmore took it upon them selfs to present Vone Lindsay & Garry mackie the trophy for the best average velocity over the supper Super Sunday Pigeon Racing in the races we had. It was won by Lindsay & mackie well done lads. If you’re interested in taking part next season everyone is welcome just get in touch. We will be doing old bird racing on a Wednesday & yb racing on a Sunday 😎😎

Copied from Facebook 14th December 2025 Some photos from danderhall RPC presentation today trophies were presented by John Bosworth 2x Gold cup winner multiple winner of national averages well done to all trophy winners it wouldn’t be a success without our secretary Barry Kinnear well done 👏👏👏

Copied from Facebook 14th December 2025 Lauriston Homing Society Sales List Sun 14th Dec - Sun 21st (9pm) For sale are some fantastic birds , kindly donated by some of the countries top top fanciers. To place a Bid, just go into comments and put lot number and amount you wish to Bid. All proceeds going to club funds Lot 1. C&G Cameron - Arbroath Lot 2. P Virtue - Cockburnspath Lot 3. Chris McLaughlin - Stenhousemuir Lot 4. G Harrison - Lesmahagow Lot 5. B Chalmers - Kennoway Lot 6. R Walker - Eyemouth Lot 7. D Anderson - Annan Lot 8. K Droog - Forfar Lot 9. AS Thomson & Son - Portseaton Lot 10. A Miller - Sighthill Lot 11. A McLean - Oban Lot 12. Maskame & Cordiner - Peterhead Lot 13. T&M Paterson - Plean Lot 14. K Whitham - Dunbar Lot 15. M&J Currie - Moffat

At 89 years old, Willy Verbruggen has enjoyed remarkable success in pigeon racing, with national victories in Barcelona in 2011 and Marseille in 2024. Willy Verbruggen competes in two international races each year outside of the Barcelona team, adding to his vast experience and expertise in pigeon racing. His impressive achievements are the result of years of dedication, hard work, and carefully selecting the best pigeons for competition.

On behalf of myself and my auld dad Fifer, we would like to wish all the members of Basics a Very Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year, from my home to your home. Thank you for your support this year.

Copied from Facebook 12th December 2025