Pigeon fanciers flock to the Racing Pigeon Show at Telford's International Centre

The Racing Pigeon Show is more than just a meeting of bird enthusiasts at Telford's International Centre.

It was organised by Lee Fribbins, editor of The Racing Pigeon, a magazine that sells 10,000 copies weekly, and was held on Saturday.

He said: "We have different shows around the country over winter. We've been coming here for about 10 years now.

"We get traders coming from all over Europe, and we get visitors coming from the Midlands, Liverpool, Manchester, North and South Wales.

"It gives people in the area a chance to come and look at what's new in the market.

"And, of course we have auctions at the back."

Benefitting from those was Mickey Collins, the Birmingham-based owner of Donhere Leo, a champion who has gone on to sire a whole stable of winning flyers.

Indicating the back of the hall, Mr Collins said: "His grandchildren are selling over there for £1,000 each."

There is good reason, five of Donhere Leo's grandchildren have gone on to be national aces, winners at a country-wide level wherever they are based.

"I bought him from Belgium before he bred all those national ace pigeons," Mr Collins said.

"It's a very good place to sell pigeons. I've been coming to all the shows for all the years I've been selling, and if I don't have a stand I'll come along anyway."

Elsewhere in the show dealers were selling birds for as little as £25, with one stand even offering a Black Friday weekend special deal of £10 off each pigeon.

Ian Stafford, with high-end breeders JPS Lofts, said: "You can get a pigeon for anything from £10 to £250,000.

"It's performance-based, it's no different to horse racing really. Or to put it another way, Manchester United have got a much more expensive team than Barnsley."

Visitors to the show were not just selling birds as they also browsed trade stands selling everything pigeon related.

Items on sale covered everything from specialist feed and loft materials to books and DVDs on the sport.

Peter Benet, from Newcastle, was offering pigeon-photographing services.

He said it was a good show but it had got smaller over the years as the sport was currently in decline in the UK.

"There are no youngsters coming into it," he said, "10 years ago it would have been 10 times bigger than this."

Why the sport has fallen out of fashion with the younger generation was hard to say, he said, as in other countries it is as popular as ever and big money can be made from it.

Paul Smith, co-ordinator of the South African Million Dollar Pigeon Race, was one of those who had a stand at the pigeon show.

He said pigeon racing was an international sport and winners stood to bag themselves hundreds of thousands of pounds.

He said he had already won £75,000 on pigeon racing this season, but the Million Dollar race was the big one, held in February. "This is the biggest one-off race in the world, we have 36 different countries entering, it's like the Olympics of pigeon racing."

Keith Gaut, a journalist from Donnington who writes for The Racing Pigeon, said the show was great for Telford and Shropshire.

He said: "The amount of national winners and champions that come here is amazing. Everybody congregates here. A lot of proceeds from this go to charity and it's a great day out."