CHAPTER 3

"BUILDING FOR THE DISTANCE"

Early enthusiasts were W.S. Andrews and his cousin A.D. Andrews who raced their pigeons to the village of Monkton near Prestwick.  They raced first through the West of Scotland Club and in 1898 joined the Ayr Burns Club which started a year earlier.  The Andrews family were great supporters of racing their birds as far as possible both their names appear in the early Nationals from Cork and Skibbereen.  Indeed W.S. Andrews was the outright winner of the Thurles race organised by the Scottish National committee, the winner scored on a 1049 velocity, W.B. Shields of Ibrox was eight yards behind with G. Brownie of Coatbridge third and there were 116 entries.

The Late Willie McClure of Prestwick who was an early S.N.F.C. Vice-President talking about our sport to Jack House the Historian and Writer for Glasgow Evening Times.

Such results aroused and motivated an up and coming fancier from Prestwick by the name of William McClure.  As the years went by Willie McClure became a legend in his own lifetime taking on the post as Vice-President of the National F.C. and secretary of Ayr Burns Club in 1920 while residing at 4 Leslie Terrace, Prestwick.

In 1958 the Editor of the "Racing Pigeon" visited Willie and asked him to pen his thoughts on how the sport came along.  Willie headed his story "Days Gone By" and opened by stating it is a sport where he has made many friends and some of the closest were Sassenachs, one in Particular J.T. Clark of Windermere.  Jack befriended Willie with youngsters on many occasions and was the kingpin at the distance races in Cumbria.

There being no race rubber rings until around 1905-06 Willie told the story of his fast trapper.  James Wise of Glasgow also a Vice-president in the S.N.F.C was boasting in a friendly way of his New trap which he had installed and challenged Mr Andrews to invent a better one.  When a pigeon returned from a race its wing stamp code  had to be taken to the nearest Post Office to be recorded and a time marked down by the counter staff.  Mr Andrews replied "Do you see that old hen, well when she goes to the race on a Friday I go over the road to Miss Hutchinson the Postmistress and say the old hen is racing tomorrow".  She replies "O.K.. Mr Andrews I will leave the glass door open".  When the old hen comes home she fly's through the glass door puts her wing on the counter for Miss Hutchinson to read the new stamp marking then fly over to her loft and straight on to her nest.  "I'm beaten said Mr. Wise".  That was the sort of humorists who were in the sport in those days.  Willie McClure then went on to say not one of us are the experts which we think we are when it comes to selection of Young Birds.

A few years in the sport and we all think we are better fanciers than we really are and give the following example.  One prominent fancier of that ere was asked to sort out his own team of youngsters into two groups prior to racing.  Of his 24 he said he had 10 really good ones and 14 of a lesser status.  After three races had been flown 5 of the good ones had gone down and he still had 13 of the bad ones as he put it.  When the final race was flown he had only 3 good ones left and 7 of the bad ones had finished the course.  While it had been a heavy young bird season the prominent fancier had to admit he was less of an expert than he thought he was.  The race basket had sorted the chaff from the corn so to speak.

The Irish route was favourite  in the formative years with Girvan a popular railway training toss, indeed races were tried from Ballantrae then Stranraer before crossing to Belfast, Dublin, Cork and Skibbereen some 300 odd miles to Ayrshire.  Kilwinning fancier Alex Clelland has two gold medals his uncles won on this route from Greenock and Cork.  The craze for longer distance races saw all the Scottish organisations turn to the English route in 1903 and by 1904 the Scottish National held a race from Weymouth, one year on and we had pigeons racing from Guernsey, rapid progress indeed.  In the space of two years Ayrshire Federation acclaimed their first National Winners the Muir Brothers of Newmilns who raced to their Gowran Brae Lofts.  John S. Muir was the senior partner who timed their Blue Pied Hen named "Lady Mary" on a 762 velocity to beat 246 other entries flying 431 miles.  I can only imagine this famous victory urged more fanciers in the West of Scotland to test their best pigeons at the channel events.  Granville was flown in 1908 and 1909 which must surely have been the feeler to go into the heartland of France itself.

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Chapter 4 - Rennes On The Shift