About The South African Distance Roller Federation

How and when did the Federation become the official governing body of the South African distance roller pigeon?

Up until 2017 the Federation was called the South African Roller Pigeon Federation when the name was changed to the South African Distance Roller Federation. It was started in the late 1940`s when in 1948 Bill Beckley established the first deep roller society in South Africa and named it Eastern Districts Roller Society (EDRS). This society represented fancier’s nationwide. The first EDRS competitions consisted of 12 bird kits and the duration of these competitions was 45 minutes. During this time a bird could earn one bonus point for grouping and one bonus point for flying. Each bird was also awarded points for its deepest roll within the 45 minute duration of the competition. In those early years the roll of a bird was measured in feet i.e. 1 point for 12 feet, 1.5 points for 18 feet, 2 points for 24 feet, 2.5 points for 30 feet, 3 points for 36 feet, 3.5 points for 42 feet, 4 points for 48 feet, 4.5 points for 54 feet and maximum of 5 points for 60 feet and over. These rules favoured the deep roller pigeon. Each bird was coloured with a different colour dye for identification purposes, and each bird was allocated a judge whose duty it was to concentrate on the bird allocated to him and record each roll of this bird for the duration of the competition.

At its peak, the EDRS had a membership of more than 300 members and this feat has not been achieved in South Africa since. Ironically this achievement eventually led to the disbanding of the EDRS in 1966. One can imagine how cumbersome and time consuming the competitions must have been as each bird had to have a judge watching it for 45 minutes. Fanciers began to break up and form their own smaller localized clubs with competition durations of 20 minutes. Erick Steven broke away in 1968 to form the South African Professional Roller Association, SAPRA. By the end of the 1960`s Tommy Allison, Henry Scott and Bill Beckley left the roller sport never to return.

Petroon Van Staden

A notable fancier emerged to take over the reins and reshape the roller sport in South Africa dramatically. Petroon Van Staden, also known today as the “Grandfather” of the local roller pigeon, advocated 1 extra point for grouping and the removal of the maximum of 5 points awarded for a roll of 60 feet or over.

But to do this another method of judging had to be found. Petroon Van Staden formed his Professional Roller Club, PRO, in 1979 and at the same time introduced a revolutionary new method of judging. Instead of using the traditional method of measuring the bird’s depth of roll in feet, Petroon made use of a stop watch to measure the depth of roll, allocating 1 point for every second of roll by the bird. Many of the remaining EDRS members either joined his club or formed clubs with the same principles. These clubs differed from the clubs established a few years earlier because they allocated unlimited points for depth of roll.

Many of these birds would fly in the clouds and start rolling and only stop just before reaching the ground. Such spectacles were not often seen as it took an experienced breeder and many roll-downs to produce safe rollers of this depth. Rollers of this nature normally roll only once in 20 minutes, and have a slower roll action than that of the kit performer but still possess the ability to return to the kit after rolling.

New Era

Carel Laufs continued as the Chairman of the SARDF until the end of 2010 when he took a decision to step down with the hope that someone new with fresh ideas would take over and carry on with what he had been doing for the last 11 years and ultimately take the SARPF to the next level. This decision turned out to be a mistake which resulted in the disbanding of the SARPF in early 2011.

As in the past, clubs continued and changed the original set of rules to suit their club. This continued up until the end of 2016 when two fanciers, Johan Drotskie and Wouter Gerber, decided it was time to revive the SARPF. After some investigation they were pointed in the direction of the former Chairman Carel Laufs.

After they had made contact with him and explained their plan, some discussions took place as to where they wanted to go with the Federation. It seemed like history was repeating itself and as in the past, their biggest challenge was to get all the clubs still flying distance rollers together. Most importantly, to get them all to accept one set of rules based on the previous Federation rules. This proved to be the biggest challenge as clubs had been flying their own sets of rules for the past 6 years. Their reluctance to change was understandable. However, in order to revive the federation, it was crucial that everybody agreed on the same principals and rules.