Dagenham South Road Article 3

Wiley · June 14, 2020

Dagenham South Road Marking Station

So with another week been and gone, and with the channel races looming the dagenham boys all made up of ex north roaders, excitement is starting to build.

With the new restrictions in place those members with channel on their minds, all had booked their time slot places at the Basildon Marking Station run by Joe House for the forthcoming BICC race from Falaise. For Joe and his team our hats must go off to him and his team, they done a fantastic job with the current circumstances.

Alot of the talk in the group chat this week was about this weekends up and coming weather and wind. Those not sending with the BICC was noting the wind to be South Easterly on Saturday, with extremely good weather. Considering the size of the thames, this side of the liberation along with the sundridge we need a little help with the wind, and anything with easterly too us this side is a bonus. You can imagine that the air was blue, when the marking for the club race from Littlehampton a distance to most members this side around the 55 mile mark, was post ponned due to potential storms. As you can imagine the group chat went into a flurry of screenshots of weather reports, to which followed by facebook. It was clear it was not only the east side of the club that was shocked by the decision. It was also made clear on Facebook that littlehamptons have a no-hold over rule, and that obviously lead to the questions on why do we use it as a race point?With many of the clubs members either individually or training on the numerous group training facilities down to the coast on a regular basis, which would vary in distances from the shortest members of our club 50 miles to some of our longest at 100 miles, would it not be beneficial to find an alternative? Salisbury possibly which to the shortest is roughly 80 miles to the longest on average 120ish, just food for thought maybe.

This week also saw our club move into the 21st century of the sport with the inclusion of ETS system. I think this is a great push into the sport for our area of East London as I believe we are the only club in the area to use this, as many clubs in the east london area were and still are totally against it. The King of Scotland will not be a turn co to his trusty manual however, as he calls those on ETS lazy ets fanciers.

Back to Falaise, the BICC released the birds at 6:15am in a southly wind, which was turning more easterly as they hit the channel. Many of the clubs members who have been racing south for a couple of years now predicted the birds would run roughly down to cherbourg with that wind before crossing and the early birds would be on the west side of the country. The difference in velocities for the main Bicc result would suggest just as predicted.

Taking 1st and 2nd club is Bernie and Jamie Willson. Their first pigeon being bred by Patrick and Tony Mahoney and had previously scored from fourges as a baby. 2nd club is a really good pigeon for the partnership previously being a winner of the UBI combine from Falaise.

3rd and 4th went to Alfie Gadsdon and son Ryan, with first on the clock the partnerships all section pooler Black Cock, being a grandon of Isla Rainy Day Boy crossed with Mark Bulled Bloodlines. 4th is a Cheq Wf hen yearling bred by last years Barcalona winner John Chipperfield.

The race in itself was a good test for the pigeons this side of the country, and they knew they had to work for it. Like all BICC races the condition the birds returned in was excellent.

Despite the conspiracy theoriest out there, saturday marking came for the race from littlehampton, and considering alot of the clubs members sent to the BICC, the response for this club race was extremely good, with 10 members sending 143 birds.

Winning 1st club, and on his first race of the year was Terry Green, with an exceptional 4 year old blue cock, who was a winner of 4 races on the north including 11th Open London North road Combine. Terry also takes 4th Club.

2nd club Micky Connolly and son Michael, with a blue Franz Zwols cock.

3rd club was Slav Zielinski, who had a fanatastic result on his first race of the year, after only having one training toss onnthe south too. Slavs pigeon is a chequer pied Jos Vercammen cock bird.

Many reported an iffy race with the early ones making good time, but then it became what I would deem a steady race, despite the quick early velocities.

I must also state when i do say club in my articles, it must not be taken out of context it is meant as marking station.

For those who have an interest in the club and are tech savvy please dont hesitate to look us up on Facebook where regular updates of the dagenham marking station take place.

Sayonara for now....

Grasshopper