Tippler Supervision
(Internet Published) Jan 2002
I believe that very few people understand the value of spectator interest. I
have said that contest tippler flying only makes sense in areas where a few
or several men live fairly close together, supervise each other, visit each
other very easily and without much travel. Apart from this there used to be
a large spectator interest from neighbours.
The contest dates were well known and were in fact a local event. People
would take to the streets during the day time and keep watch on the various
kits. Basically they knew the rules; they could tour the general area on the
look out for irregularities and were very quick to inform the flyers about
them.
The first kit to drop or to be disqualified would soon be reported to the
remaining flyers and all interested spectators. It is remarkable how the
children latched on. Well, there was little else for them to do in those
days! Some of the boys became little mercenaries who could earn a couple of
pence for reporting the progress of failures to certain flyers. This kind of
information was certainly an asset. Very often a fancier was informed that
he was the only contestant left in a fly. So that all he had to do was make
sure that he dropped his birds. He had no need to push for maximum time.
Imagine the excitement when about 3 contestants were neck to neck, not one
of them willing to make his move the drop the kit, but prepared to wait
until some reliable spectator informed him that all other birds were down or
disqualified.
A few cases of false information were known. There was an attempt to make a
rule to prevent the passing of information but this was declared to be a
ridiculous rule which could not be enforced.
Well, those days are mostly gone. There is hardly any spectator interest
from non-tippler people, however the telephone plays a part whereby for
example information is passed between places rather widely separated. I know
that such information has been passed between Northern Ireland and
Sheffield, not necessarily directly.
Another aspect is that British fanciers all fly on the same day but in
countries where the contests are on two days, the fanciers that fly on the
second day have the chance to be informed about the results of the first
day. I have seen objections to a fancier being able to fly on both days on
the grounds that he would only send in a fly sheet for his best fly of the
two. Well, I have no objections as long as the fancier signed a declaration
that he must send in both sheets. In fact, I'd go further and insist that
every fanciers must send in his fly sheet if he took part in a contest.
However it is not a viable rule because it favours the honour system flyer
who obviously has no witness.
Nevertheless the whole sport becomes a farce without absolute honour. Yet
even then we must consider incompetence and misunderstanding of rules. We
must go on par with the law which says that ignorance of the law is not an
excuse for breaking it!