When the Mairs family moved to live at the Ballyclare end of the Cogry Road in the late 1960s my father and I both joined Springvale and we were then joined a few years later by younger brothers Trevor and Alan, so we had four family members racing to four different lofts against each other all to the same address. This ment three of us took our clocks in on race days knowing before we got to the club that we certainly weren't going to win. Trevor gave up the pigeons after a couple of years returning to golf where he and Alan went on to be low handicap players at Ballyclare Golf Club half a mile up the road. Alan raced very well topping the Section from the NIPA YB Channel Derby ,as it was then, on one occasion.
Some top sportsmen emerged from the Cogry area in the 60s and 70s with the name Turkington prominent in boxing , pigeons and football. In the mid sixties boxing brothers Henry and Billy Turkington came to prominence, boxing out of the Coe McConnell gym near Doagh, and going on to be very successful in Irish Amateur Boxing circles. These two, particularly Billy, were fearsome punchers leaving many opponents staring at the ceiling ,with those in the ringside seats getting a good look at the pattern on the sole of their boxing boots. Coe McConnell was a member of Doagh Pigeon Club and I first met him when he was asked by Ballyclare based athletic club East Antrim Harriers to be the guest starter at their annual Parkgate to Ballyclare road race. This was my first race for the Harriers and as I waited for the start Coe asked me if I was interested in boxing, and invited me to come over to the gym sometime as he thought that I could be a welterweight as I had a good reach. I didn't take him up on that offer , reckoning that the only person needing a good reach may be my corner man reaching for the smelling salts to bring me back to my senses. A number of years later I built Coe a new loft front but by that time I think he was out of the boxing business.The Turkington Brothers who were members of Springvale in the 70s were Mervyn and another Henry, with Mervyn being a talented footballer who was on the books of Ballymena United at one time. This was a path I also took when ex Liverpool and Everton centre forward Dave Hickson signed me after a trial on a snow covered Showgrounds pitch. A couple of months later he went to manage Bangor ,also an Irish League club in those days. They must have been having goalkeeper problems as a week or two later the Ballymena Reserve team trainer took me to the side at a training session to let me know that Dave had been in contact to ask if they would let me sign for Bangor. I opted to stay where I was but travel problems to training put paid to my time at Warden Street ,something I regret, and it would be 9 years later before I played there again, this time for my home town club Ballyclare Comrades. Ballymena and Bangor supporters may have had a lucky escape there . In those days summer football was very popular with 7 a side tournaments offering monetary prizes to the winning team attracting teams with good class players. I have a picture on my wall of the Little Linfield team that won such a tournament in Antrim in the early 70s, with no fewer than 4 Cogry men in the team. I was in goal with a three man defence of Rodney Turkington, Mervyn Turkington and Davy Turkington , the forwards being Kenny Higgins, Billy Heany and Wynard Higgins and 4th Cogry man Maurice Agnew as sub, Mervyn ,Maurice and myself all pigeon fanciers. One incident in that final that made me laugh was when Mervyn attempted some fancy footwork right in front of our goal almost allowing our opponents to score, Davy less than impressed asked him what the bleep he was doing ,with Mervyn asking Davy what he would have done. Davy replied " see those nettles over there", pointing at a huge bed of nettles about 40 yards away, " if that had been me they would be looking for the ball in those nettles now".
Henry, who now races in the Kells club as does Maurice Agnew, recalls an NIpa Penzance race in 1980 when he had a Mealy pigeon in great condition and really fancied it to do well, come race day sure enough a Mealy was spotted coming over the Old Mill right on line folding it's wings heading straight for his loft. As he reached for his clock the pigeon veered to the side straight on to Turkington & Robinsons landing board to win 1st Open NIPA,with the teens of thousands of pigeons entered. Incredibly the same loft topped the Open the following year again from Penzance velocity 898 ypm ,I would think that has never been done before or since, brilliant racing by Artie and John. Ballyclare & Dist had a membership of up to possibly 80 members in the 1960s and Secretary John Robinson had his work cut out to produce a hand written result which he pinned on the notice board every race marking night. Such was the crowd that gathered at the notice board that John usually had to elbow his way in to get to the board occasionally asking why they were all so keen to see that they had finished closer to the bottom of the list than the top. John was a great secretary who didn't suffer fools lightly and many were the AGMs that he would sit looking out over the top of his glasses as all and sundry voiced their opinion on this and that subject. When they all had their say he would push his glasses back up and quote some rule or other that rendered all the suggestions non starters.
Another character from the area was Bobby McCullough who in his younger days was a champion cross country runner and keen pigeon fancier in the Doagh Club. Bobby was good company and spent many Saturday mornings helping my father to do jobs about the house and garden at our bungalow on the Rashee Road, no prizes for guessing what the subject of their conversation was about as they worked. Some very good long distance performances were put up over the years with National and Derby wins into the area. Mr & Mrs Suitters Ouimper win was as far as I know the only INFC French race won but in the 1970s Davy Bates won the NIPA Dinard Derby whilst racing in the Springvale Club, with my father 2nd Open to complete a one two for the club. The King's Cup is a race that many aspire to do well in and the closest anyone in the Doagh or Springvale clubs has come to winning it was in 1969 when McAdam Brothers of Doagh were 3rd Open from Nantes, and also Hugh Irvine & Son of the Springvale club 3rd Open Rennes in 1978, with the next best being noted distance man Robin Duddy on the Rectory Road who was 4th Open in 1994 from Rennes with Turkington & Robinson's 6th Open way back in 1961, flying 600 miles from Les Sables. The Irvine loft was located in Ballyclare and Hugh was the father of well known auctioneer and pigeon fancier Jack Irvine who was also 3rd Open King's Cup in 1974 flying to the same loft. Jack's son Shaun also took an interest in pigeons as a teenager and raced in Springvale as one half of the Irvine and Martin partnership, with young Martin his next door neighbour also a teenager. This young partnership actually topped the NIPA Open from Haverfordwest on one occasion with 19.000 plus pigeons competing with Sandy Mairs again 2nd Open.
Robin Duddy , who actually races in the Ballyclare Club, won the INFC Penzance Young Bird National and Jock Wilson the INFC Yearling National racing in Springvale, were two outstanding performances that I can recall in my time,
The Springvale club no longer exists but Doagh has many excellent pigeon men who frequently appear prominently in NIPA and INFC results. Anthony and Norman Lewis 2nd Open Friendship National Quimper, Brian and Elaine McNeilly 2nd Open Sennen Cove Yearling National are two that come to mind, then there's William McClelland INFC fancier of the Year a few years back. Campbell McGrugan one of the stalwarts of the Springvale club has also won the NIPA Old Bird French National St Malo. The smallest pigeon I ever owned came from A & C McGrugan when they had a sale back in the 1970s, she had flown France for the McGrugans and bred me a Dinard prize winner in her first nest. In the 70s with the Ballyclare club having a 15 bird limit a number of fanciers joined Springvale who didn't have any limit as far as I remember and there were some who doubled over into the club. Flyers of the calibre of Billy Cummings, Andy Agnew and Davy McNeilly saw to it that you had to be on your toes to win the club back in those days. Over the years many many top performance have been put up by fanciers in the Doagh and Springvale clubs so apologies to all those who are not mentioned in this article.
Back in the day in Cogry many practical jokes were played on some fanciers with Jimmy Cowan the butt of some of them. On one occasion a taxi driver who lived in the Square built a big wooden garage to house his car, which put an idea into the head of one of the local fanciers who gathered up a few accomplices to lift Jimmy's small loft and carry it into the garage under cover of darkness. The next morning they hid out of sight as Jimmy came whistling up the garden with water and corn bucket in hand coming to about 20 yards of where the loft should have been before actually realising it was gone. As he started to look left and right to see where it was audible laughter reached his ears, whereupon the parentage of those behind the bushes was called into question as Jimmy turned the air blue. Poor Jimmy was also reputed to be less than generous when feeding his birds, reckoning that when he threw a handful of maple peas on the floor they only bounced once.
The housing at Cogry was eventually leveled to the ground and some time later private housing was built leaving no sign of the original little hamlet that now only exists in the memories of those old enough to recall it.
Milne Mairs
Back L-R Davy Turkington...Kenny Higgins...Billy Heany...Mervyn Turkington.
Front L-R Maurice Agnew...Milne Mairs...Rodney Turkington...Wynard Higgins.