Pigeon racing, despite its old-fashioned image, still thrives in the North-East. Owen Amos joins Coxhoe Homing Society to learn its secrets – and hears how pigeons are flying into the 21st Century.

HE’S late. He should be home now.

You try not to panic, but he’s had a long journey. Has he got lost?

Has he died? Then, eyeing the horizon, you see something; a speck starting to loom large. Is this him?

He gets closer, a dark dart looming out of the blue sky, diving like a jet ready to land. Your pigeon has flown 500 miles and, without compass or map, has found home, the place he learnt to fly. That’s some birdbrain; that’s some reunion. These homecomings are pigeon racing’s appeal.

“When you see a pigeon that’s come 500 miles, it’s a great thrill watching them come in,” says Reuben Dowding, 71, outside his loft in Kelloe. Reuben has raced pigeons since he was nine. Between him and his brother, Tom, 80, who race as Dowding Brothers, they have 125 years’ experience.

“When you see them out of the sky you think ‘Here’s one! Here’s one!’” says Reuben, who won his first race in 1947 – it started in Welwyn Garden City – and still has the medal. “It’s just like when I was nine.”

Some may think pigeon racing, like coal mining, is a closed chapter in the North-East’s history; locked in a black-and-white past with brick factories and flat caps. But Coxhoe Homing Society, of which Reuben and the rest are members, thrives. When Tony Ingledew and his wife, Emma, became secretaries three years ago, there were seven members. Now, there are 16. The youngest is 11 and the oldest is 77.

In the UK, pigeon racing dates back to 1881, at least.

Coxhoe club started in 1890, four years after King Leopold II of Belgium gave the British royal family their first pigeons. The Queen remains a patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.

Like cricket, pigeon racing runs from April to September, with a race every Saturday. The pigeons are taken by transporter to the start point – for Coxhoe, anywhere from Wakefield to northern France – then race home.

When they arrive, their average speed is calculated and the winner announced. With a tail wind, pigeons can fly at more than 80mph. Forget the Bullet Train, for the next Top Gear challenge, Clarkson should race a pigeon. Birdbrain versus birdbrain.

Pigeons are like horses and greyhounds, top racers are a mix of good breeding and good training. “It’s a 50-50 thing,” says Reuben.

Every trainer, intriguingly, has a “system”, an indefinable regime that reaps rewards. Think Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest. This is no flight of fancy.

“All pigeon men take their system with them,” says Barry Wilson, 61, who raced pigeons for 41 years until 2002. “They can tell you, pass it on, but it’s not the same. They have to have a good breed – you can’t just race any Tom, Dick, or Harry, it’s like a Grand National horse – but a good pigeon man can take a good pigeon and make it better.”

Training involves teaching a bird where the loft is, taking it for 20 or 30-mile practice runs and feeding it properly. “When I started, I never followed a system,” says Barry, who took eight years to win his first race. “I wasn’t a good pigeon man. Then I got a system from down south, a feeding programme, the lot. There was this change in the pigeon and its body. It’s the way you train them and feed them. Heavy pigeons won’t win races.”

One training trick, “the widow system”, involves keeping the male from its mate. The night before a race, the male will glimpse his partner before being taken to the start point.

“Then they’ll race back for sex,” says Reuben. “Some times it won’t work, though. Some race back for the family life.” Pigeons and humans, it seems, are more similar than we thought.

And don’t think any town centre pigeon, grimy and grubby, could beat a racer. “They’re different beasts to town pigeons,” says Jimmy Shaw, 73. “Town pigeons give pigeons a bad name.” Reuben – who names his best birds – says he looks after his pigeons better than he looks after himself. “My wife says all I need is a bed down here and I wouldn’t come home.”

Incentive or not, not every pigeon makes it back.

Reuben once lost 37 out of 40 pigeons in a race and hawks are the usual suspects. For them, pigeons are a movable feast.

The navigation, it’s thought, could be based on magnetic fields, so mobile phone masts – popping up like muck on a loft roof – cause some pigeons to lose their signal. The Menwith Hill “golf balls”, built in North Yorkshire in the 1950s, had apparently a similar effect.

Though Coxhoe has younger members, it is, for now, an older man’s game. “People might get involved when they’re 40,” says Reuben.

“Their family has grown up a bit and they’re not as frightened of their wives.”

Like all grassroots sport, the crack is more important than the competition. Though there is prize money, it’s not much, especially once feed – £12 a bag – loft costs and entry fees are considered. Pigeon racing won’t make you rich – unless you win South Africa’s Sun City Million Dollar Pigeon Race – but it might make you a pal or two.

“It’s the company I like,” says Barry. “I have friends in Torquay through pigeon racing. You go to the pub, if they’re talking about pigeons, straight away you can join in the conversation.”

And now, 118 years after Coxhoe Homing Society started, pigeons are flying into the 21st Century. In October, it was announced Coxhoe was one of three North-East societies, along with Wingate, County Durham, and Castlehome, in Sunderland, to win Lottery grants to buy electronic timing equipment.

Currently, a pigeon is “home” when its tag, tied to its leg, is inserted in a special clock kept in the loft. This, of course, means the trainer must be there when the pigeon arrives and means he must be able to lift it. The electronic method – which means a pigeon will be “home” the second flies into the loft – will make the sport more accessible.

“In the modern day, people have to work on Saturdays,” says Tony Ingledew, the joint secretary.

“This means they don’t physically have to wait for the bird. It also means more disabled people will be able to compete. It’s a really good thing. People at first were against it, but now it’s come in they’re really in favour.”

But, despite the technology, not many trainers will let their rovers return without a welcome committee. It’s the reunion, after all, that makes the race worthwhile.

■ Anyone from the Coxhoe area interested in joining should phone Tony Ingledew on 0191-3772110.