Les Pinfield - Consistency with a Capital C

[willie reynolds]

Les Pinfield - Captain Bloody Marvellous – Consistency with a Capital C

When you spend any time around intelligent pigeon men you realise quickly that one thing they admire and value in any other fancier is consistency. Amongst our ranks we have a cluster of names that have been at the top in their chosen field for many years, the likes of the Bush brothers, Richard Howey, Bartlett and Jones , Marley Westrop and the Woodruffe brothers are a few that spring to mind. Fanciers such as these don’t court publicity but are content and focused on doing what they do year in, year out whilst we all look on and wonder what the secret of their success is, in the meantime these fanciers remain consistent with a capital C. I would like to suggest another fancier from my own area of The West Midlands who would sit very comfortably amongst those fanciers listed above in terms of longevity and success – Les Pinfield from Stratford Upon Avon. I first got to know Les when I moved in to the area and needed somewhere to buy a decent range of corn and other products. When you first meet Les two things become apparent very quickly – firstly that he doesn’t have the legs for shorts, which is a pity as he has just this summer retired after 33 years as a Postman. The second thing is the depth of knowledge and skill that he possesses with pigeons. He is one of those unassuming people who you just know is handy around the birds, and exudes a thorough and capable air. I soon realised as well that when you mentioned his name in polite circles he is well respected amongst his competitors, and also how far his reputation carried. This was brought home to me succinctly when I was at an auction in Birmingman of a successful sprint man and got talking to some locals and when I said where I was from they asked why I was looking for birds elsewhere when I had les Pinfield on my door step. To give you some idea of how successful Les is, he is consistently amongst the top prizes winners each year, and has over the past 7/8 years won an average of 25 1st prizes, with no duplications….and he is always a danger at Federation level, having won both feds he competes in 3 times this year and he has also topped the combine as well. Consistency is hard work, it’s just that those who are good at it make it look easy… and Les falls in to this category. To try to get an insight in to how this consistency is built up and maintained I sat Les down and tried to get behind the results. I think it is fair to say that les is a very quiet, unassuming bloke and it has taken 4 years of my Irish charm to get him to agree to have a bit of publicity.

Les has been around pigeons without a break for 50 years, and that in itself will bring with it a level of experience and abilty. He started the old fashioned way as an 8 year old who mucked about with a few along with the other kids in his street. One of the lads had a dad who was a train driver and he would take a few birds along the line to Birmingham and release them so the boys could have a race The Blue Riband distance event being from Birmingham, all of 22 miles or so, but the birds that returned from this far off race point were coveted and much admired. His first birds came from the ledges of local factories and the railway yard and were swapped with mates, but as his dad Charlie saw the young lads interest grow he also became interested , and this rekindled his interest as he had kept pigeons before he had gone in to the army as a young man. From the outset, the partnership had a mantra that was to underpin the success and consistency that sets Les apart – get the best available. To this end they approached Wally Jones from Welshpool who was a household name with his Ameel based birds and they bought some birds of him for stock. Their patient approach saw them ready to compete with young birds in 1969, and they started as they meant to go on, winning the club from a very hard Exeter race. In this particular race the Pinfield partnership had 10/10 when have the convoy was missing, providing a glimpse in to the potential that the two men had. The Ameels did them proud over the next few years and they had a fair amount of success, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the local fanciers as Charlie was the cousin of Bates Brothers, who were top fanciers in the Stratford area in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Being almost irresistible as he was, it comes as no surprise to find that Les got married in 1976 to the beautiful Edwina – who Les says was a stunner then and has only improved with age and his failing eyesight!! The young couple had to wait 2 years before they could move in to a house with a garden that would allow Les to put up a pigeon loft. This seemed like the perfect and natural opportunity to move out of partnership with his father and to become Mr and Mrs Pinfield – which has continued to this day. Following the ‘ get the best’ approach in 1978 Les went to Tommy Lawley who was tearing up trees with his team of Stichlebaut birds and bought two pairs to take home to Stratford and try against his own family. These birds did not disappoint when he started to race them in 1980, and with the first kit of young birds bred from these birds Les won Warwickshire Federation with a 2nd round hen and the following week won the federation again with the 1st round sister, and they continued to win well for Les right along the line. However, being distance birds they needed a lot of road work to get them to win regularly and Les had been looking around and that a few good teams of sprint families were being tried out by West Midlands fanciers and the results were very tasty. Les wanted in on this and felt that sprint bred and based birds would require much less work. This is the approach of a thinking fancier and it has served Les well over the years, and has helped in maintaining consistency. Les did his homework and identified the Gravelly way lofts of the late Don Blakeway as the place to get his hands on these birds. His father was in partnership with a local fancier called Harry Hodgkins at this point and the three men pooled their resources and attended a Gravelly way sale in 1987 to see what all the fuss was about. They realised the quality of the birds on offer and between them they bought 8 to bring back home. When these birds had tidied up un the moult their quality just oozed, and Les contacted Don to see if there were more available- he was invited up to the lofts for a look at what was on offer and came away with an additional 19 to give them 27 Blakeway birds in the stock loft. This was a massive leap of faith and huge gamble from the three men, but fortune favours the brave and they had faith in their beliefs which was to be quickly repaid as from the first race with This made them realise that they just might be on to something here with these birds and over the next 12 -14 years that proved to be the case. However, the introduction of these birds was tinged with sadness as Charlie died in 1988 and to this day it remains Les’ biggest regret that his dad did not get to see the success of these birds and how they dominated at sprint racing in a way that none of them could have anticipated. Les continued to cultivate this family and from the original purchases a few top breeders emerged, and none more so than R200, and their influence is still felt in the loft today .It seems fitting that the last representatives of these birds in the stock loft are 3 old race cocks who on 4 occasions came to take 1,2,3 in the North Oxon federation, with Ace Blue still kicking about filling his eggs and breeding federation winners. Now, it is worth remembering at this point that the vast majority of the birds in this now defunct federation flew in to the Kidlington and Banbury areas…which are South East of where Les lives and flies but such is the skill of the fancier and the quality of the birds he was able to stamp his authority all over the federation.

Shortly After bringing in the Janssen birds Les started noticing the emergence of the Felix Pauwel birds and at the Blackpool show in 1988 he bumped in to Bob Ashman who he knew had these birds. As luck would have it Felix was attending the show that year and Bob introduced the two men who hit it off and Les was invited over the following summer to look at the birds. Now, what follows next is possibly an insight in to the focus needed to be successful and a realisation that he did well to marry Edwina. In an attempt to kill two birds with one stone, when Les set off for his first trip to Belgium to visit Felix Pauwels he brought the family with him and sold it to them as a holiday. When the got to Felix Pauwels Les liked what he saw and wanted to buy, but as Felix only kept a small team there weren’t many to choose from. The upshot was that Les bought a pair, , but in so doing had blown the budget for the holiday, so after spending the first night in a hotel the Pinfield family spent a further 2 nights sleeping in the car. What you have to bear in mind is that Les drove a Mini Metro and the family consisted of himself, Edwina 7 year old Gemma and 5 year old Alan. As you can imagine the holiday is stilled talked about today with differing degrees of affection. When they were being collected from Felix later in the year by Bob Ashman, Les gave him some money to get another hen as well. Anyway,the sacrifice proved to be worth it as the Pauwels proved the perfect compliment to the Blakeway birds and in fact Les went back in 1990 and bought 6 more – I am not sure what the sleeping arrangements were that time!!

The family of birds that evolved from these introductions needed very little work to get them fit and keep them that way, and more importantly adapted immediately to the widowhood system on which they excelled for Les. However, as with all consistently successful fanciers he did not rest on his laurels and was looking around for another family of birds to bring in and race against his existing birds. His homework led him to the loft of Marcel Sangers in Holland and Les made contact with Marcel and visited him in 1999. He was impressed with the man and his birds and bought 14 from is best – this was when Top Gun and Tommy Gun were helping to make Marcel a household name. There were no birds available to take away from the birds that Les liked so he had to play a waiting game and it wasn’t until 2000 that he had the Sangers birds in his loft. Incidentally the journey to pick the birds up was 13 hours non –stop, again another sign of the conviction/lunacy that you find in successful pigeon men. These birds proved a success and gradually edged out the old Blakeway/Pauwels birds – although these did not go completely Les just concentrated more on the Sangers. These Sangers birds were consistently good birds in all winds and allowed Les to compete with more confidence from across the channel, and again these thrived on widowhood.

Les has always maintained a good eye for quality birds and along the way he has not hesitated in bringing in good birds from a range of sources, an example being the birds he brought in from Bobby Walton. These were introduced at the same time as the Blakeway birds but fought hard to earn a perch and these proved successful as well for the Pinfield loft.

Les has been fortunate along the way to have encountered a range of fanciers who have helped shape his fortunes and maintain his consistency. One such fancier was Ken Rudge who Les was introduced to by Tommy Orme, a man who himself was well known for his distance exploits including winning from Barcelona in the late 1950’s. Ken took the young Les under his wing and in Les’ words put him right on every aspect of pigeon keeping, but especially health, feeding and widowhood flying. The rudiments that ken taught les 40 years ago are still the keystones of his management today. It was through his tutelage that Les developed rapidly and his influence cannot be overlooked when we consider the consistency of success that Les has experienced. Of course, all this advice would remain purely theoretical if you did not have the tools for the job, and has been seen Les has not been lacking is these.

Another key figure in the past 20 + years has been Les’ very good friend and travelling companion Micky Collins. There are not many people who do not know Micky, and this includes on the continent as well, he has the uncanny knack of identifying up and coming fanciers and investing in their best before anyone else has heard of them. To illustrate this, Mick visited Danny Van Dyke when a promising young cock had just won his first race, Mick liked the bird and sked for a pair of young birds from it at the end of his young bird season – this bird was The kanon who tore apart the Antwerp union as a young bird and strung together a set of results that will stand for some time. This knack that Micky has did not go unnoticed by others and it has earned him the nick name of ‘Johnny on The spot’ by Ad Schaerlaekens. My point in using the example above is that in most of the loft visits that Micky has undertaken in the past 20 years Les has been by his side and the two friends have made the most of the opportunities afforded to them by bringing back young birds to race of fanciers that were unknown by most in Britain. If they raced well a few more would be sourced, raced and weaved in through the existing birds in their lofts, this is a practise especially favoured by Les. Over the years this approach has seen the introduction from lofts such as Guy Staes, Alfons Slaets, Walter Docx and Rudi Denaese. In some cases only a 3 or 4 young birds were introduced. As an example, in 2007 Les visited Walter Docx and when there he decided go get a few grizzles if he could as his grand daughter Megan was only 2 and he wanted a few colourful birds to get her interested. He came away with 2 cocks that went in to the race team and both won for Les. One of the grizzle Docx birds was christened Ferris by Les as that was Megan’s way of saying feathers. Ferris is now in the stick loft and breeding the goods with one son winning 2x1st prizes this year. The latest acquisitions are the Gebr. Bastien birds from Holland, these are built to fly through brick walls and have made quite an impact on the Pinfield loft. Personally, I think these birds would put his name up in lights at national level from the middle distance channel races. Les also has a top cock from micky Collins that is bred from Mickys very good and prepotent grandson of De Caprio- the Leo Hermans cock that is becoming a bit of a legend. The son of this cock that Les owns is an absolute stonker and just oozes class. Les is hoping for big things from him in the near future and he has already bred a son that has topped the Coventry Federation twice, and with his track record of picking good birds who would doubt him.

With regards to loft management, and in particular the health of the birds, Les is an advocate of using your eyes before using your hands. In other words, spend time observing your birds as this will be well spent if done properly. If birds look off colour pause and consider the weather, and stresses they might have encountered or changes to something in the loft environment before reaching for treatments. However, if there are genuine health issues Les has a wealth of experience that he can draw on, and the one piece of advice is will offer is that you need to stay on top of the birds health – don’t delay if you have real concerns. He has found from personal experience that bringing birds in from a range of different lofts makes it difficult so has made a conscious effort to bring in as few as possible, it’s not that the birds are unhealthy when they come, but rather they have be bred in an environment that has different levels of resistance to your own loft, and this can cause problems.

In terms of feeding the race birds, this has also evolved through experience and using his years an dears when he has been out and about with Micky. The basic approach is to get the muscle back on to the birds as soon after the race as possible, so after coming home to depurative the birds are soon introduced to protein in the way of a pea heavy mix such a s a young bird high protein mix or a well balanced breeding mix. Then, as the week progresses the widowhood corn is introduced and as we come to the end of the week Top Energy corn is used to top up the tanks. As and when this is introduced depends on the work they are expected to have to put in on the Saturday, so it will differ from one week to the next depending on weather and race point – with it being introduced earlier for the channel. The approach to feeding is very fluid and Les looks to respond to changes from one week to the next, and he is insistent that the birds cannot be allowed to go hungry and are always given as much as they want to eat. There will always be a bit of corn left in the troughs, and he doesn’t worry about them getting fat as they exercise so well there is no fear of that happening – they always have plenty of fuel in the tank which is why the fly with such vigour. This has evolved out of necessity as he used to leave for work at 3.30 am so couldn’t feed the cocks in the morning, and found that they were too hungry to fly when he got home from work. He does emphasis however that to have birds that exercise and race with such energy they need to be both fit and healthy or it will not happen. He is a big fan of the Ronny Van Tilberg mixes and he favours Number 4 and Number 22 for the widowhood cocks. He is also partial to adding in a bit of Marimans Super winner from time to time. When it comes to picking his birds on a Friday he again believes in using your eyes. A fit bird will let you know he is good to go, he will be keen on his box, have bright eyes and swivel around like Mohammed Ali – so in other words they will be ‘bouncing’.

For Les, young bird racing has not been a serious part of the sport for him, but this was dictated by his job which left little time to give the young birds the time needed to be successful. This has not impacted on their performances later in life, and some of his best birds have had no racing as young birds – and Les would question how much work a young bird actually needs. Now that he has retired he might approach young bird racing with a renewed vigour – watch this space.
At present Les has a family of birds that will easily go out to 450 – 500 miles and in his hands they should do this effortlessly. Les now has the opportunity thanks to retirement to start competing beyond the confines of local domestic racing and I hope he does. He will tell you that his success is due to being lucky to have been given the best from the best, but he is doing himself a grave disservice here, as you need to have the raw talent and ability to begin with which Les has in buckets. He has benefitted from sound advice and guidance from his dad, Ken, Mick and a few others and this has helped to knock off the rough edges, but the ability needs to be there at the start. You quite simply cannot string together the string of results that Les has over the past 3 decades- remember that he averages 25 x1st prizes a year - without the ability as good birds will only get you so far. As with all successful fanciers, he has travelled outside of his own backyard, has seen,
listened and learned and it has clearly paid off. He is the first to admit that the success he has achieved hasn’t been all his own work. He has been greatly influenced by his dad Charlie, Tommy Lawley and Micky Collins amongst many. He would like to thank Micky for his advice, birds and above all else company over the past 25 + years. He would especially like to thank his family – Edwina, Gemma, Alan and Megan for tolerating his lunacy and passion over the years, and finally a special mention to Rob Boff who looks after the birds when Les is away on holiday – Rob he would be lost without you, and having spent time in your company that worries me slightly!!.

In all his time in the sport Les has had a lot of very good birds and it would prove difficult to have a favourite, but he recalls The Ace Blue who won 4 x 1st Federation, Rudi and a current favourite called Arfur Docx because he is half Docx and Sangers. This 09 cock was only retired in July this year, after notching up a string of 1st prizes, and even this year from 9 races he had 8 top 10 finishes including 1x1st and 2x2nd , and in each of these 8 races he was on the fed sheet. When asked about memorable races he mentioned 2. The first was winning the Nuneaton 5 Bird open in the Jubilee year, this was a well supported and prestigious Sprint open race that was keenly contested by all the top sprint lofts in the area. The second occasion was much more recent, on the 16TH of May this year he topped the Coventry Federation and on the same day from a different race point the loft topped the Combine that he competes in - both in to unfavourable north west winds – a clear indication of a man at the top of the sprinting game. To round off his season he has taken the top 5 in the combine from the last old bird race and also followed this up with 10th,11th and 12th.

So there you have it, a long overdue insight in to one of the best kept secrets in the Midlands. The levels of success that Les has achieved have not gone unnoticed, and he has provided winning bloodlines for a long list of fanciers right out to national level, and his loft book reads like a Who’s Who of top tops in Britain. Les is one of the most talented fanciers I am ever likely to meet, and just continues to quietly and patiently remain consistently brilliant.