Robbie's Blog

Mark's Brief History :

Mark comenced racing pigeons in the year 2002 after keeping pigeons on and off since childhood but never racing them as having a grave fear of losing all his favorites. His first race was in the Redditch Open which he won and placed birds to be 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th, not bad for your first race only sending ten birds. He continued to race well for the remainder of the young bird season when in the winter of 2002 he moved house to his current location at Redroofs in Ettington.

Joining new clubs with the Warwick and District HS and the Shipston on Stour Flying Club along with the forming of a new club in Stratford called The South Warwickshire Racing Pigeon Club he started to amase a high selection of prizes, and on two occasions winning all three clubs on the same day and also winning two of the three federations. All this only sending nine yearling cocks in 2003 due to his house move. In his first full year he finished by winning 11 out of the 13 Old bird races entered. He did finish up as joint Federation Champion of the Warwickshire Fed along with Keith Arnold and Micky Lennon in his first full year flying with the Warwickshire Fed, flying only these nine yearling cocks.

Mark is however not the type of person to sit back on success and always wants to test himself against the best flyers and their pigeons so after five very succesful years racing Inland winning over sixty firsts and three open races out of five entered Mark decided to almost turn his back on club racing and start with the Nationals. This was always his long term goal but was brought to a head early due to local polictics that was making his club racing unbearable. 2007 was the first year in which he started but only raced three Nationals as a toe dip into the big world of National racing. 2008 was commenced in earnest and with team of nine old birds and 44 yearlings he entered a total of 13 Nationals and Classics -Old birds alone. No young birds have been raced and will be trained only to 100 mile before their final selection for 2009. All results are availible to view on the results pages as there are just to many to list here. Mark almost pulled off his dream with the Tours race with the MIdland National this year when his Champion cock "Just Jim" the dark chequer named after his beloved Grandad, scored 1st centre section and second open. In three of his five Midland National races Mark was placed in the top 25 of the open results, all being in the top five of the section.

Anybody who knows Mark knows that he will not stop until he reaches his goals. Never afraid to make big life changing decisions and more importantly to see them through. He is a man to be admired, respected and above all feared for his competitive nature, sheer determination and attention to detail. Those that are lucky enough to get close to him know that he choses his words carefully and when he speaks people do tend to listen.

Its been an honour to write this short article about my friend, I always expected to write something about his rugby but never about his pigeons - typical Mark. I wish you all the best bro with this site.

Close as brothers, a fan, supporter and above all bloody good mates,

Robbie Chorlton