By Paul Gibbs

The Hawa brothers, Bill and Joe are both very well known to many pigeon fanciers, especially those in Sydney who for many years raced in the very competitive club, the Punchbowl/Bankstown Pigeon Club. Bill telling me that they first started racing as junior members in the old Greenacre Club in 1999, 21 years ago when he was only 16yrs of age saying that their old neighbour at that time Keith Bartley introduced both Bill and his brother Joe to pigeons.

Since those “Old” early years they have certainly proven themselves to not only be competitive at the club level, racing in one of Sydney’s strongest clubs that at times boasted a membership  exceeding 30, but also in the Central Cumberland Federation. An example of this is back in 2006 when they won the Club Short Distance Point Score along with finishing 2^nd in the Club O/A Point Score. In the Federation they finished 3^rd in the Fed Short Average Sth Section, and 4^th in the East Section’s O/A average and 21^st in the Federation’s O/A average.

The brothers did not race the 2007 but returned again in 2008 when they won their club averages, along with finishing 2^nd O/A in the East Section that included being 2^nd in the Middle Distance East Section point score, 5^th in the section Long Distance point score and 4^th in the O/A East Section averages. This was finished off by finishing 6^th O/A Middle Distance and 17^th O/A in the Federation Point Score.

Their success continued in 2009 competing against 26 club members they finished the year running 2^nd in the Club Averages. In their federation section (East) they ran 5^th in the short averages, 4^th in the middle distance average and 5^th in the long average. Overall in the federation they finished 15^th in the short and 17^th O/A.

As can be seen they have always been at the top of their game at both club and federation level. Looking at their individual list of Merit Cards it would take me quite a few hours to list each and every win and prize card results, cursive to say as you can imagine there a many.

In 2010 due to Bill’s pending married the brothers decided not to race having a few years off. In so doing they had a sale of their birds at the Liverpool Sale Centre in Sydney where they sold a great majority of their top birds. Back then their very successful family of birds that were based on several high quality Janssens, Meuleman, Koopmans, Houbens, Herbots, Van Dycks, Verbruggen and Gaby’s were in high demand.

In 2012 the “Bug” got the better of them and decided to race once more from their mother’s backyard, at the completion of the year due to the difficulty in traveling two times a day to their mother’s home to train and feed the birds they decided to relocate the birds to brother Joe’s house, but unfortunately due to family reasons Joe had to relocate forcing the brothers to conduct a second sale in 2014 just prior to racing.

At the time Bill said he was living in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville and with ten pair of remaining stock birds decided to race himself joining the Merrylands Pigeon Club racing a small team of 60 youngsters. Again success followed with Bill finishing 10^th O/A in the federation.

Since then the brothers have done no racing as Bill has been busy renovating a house where he currently lives. Bill saying that the property is not the ideal block with regards to racing pigeons from and has built two small lofts designed especially to breed birds for sale, OLR’s and for designated fanciers to race on his behalf.

Bill said that this “new venture” has been in the pipeline for some time, and in so doing has decided to concentrate on pigeons that have performed at the highest level in Europe, having directly imported at great expense birds from some of the top European fanciers that are dominating races today.

Bill currently has 24 pair of imported stock and/or birds he has bred himself down off these birds. The families currently housed are – Dirk Van Den Bulck, Rudi Diels, Robin Van Leauvin, Gert Heylen, Rudy Van Reeth, Brothers Van Den Branden and two birds from their old family, that being a Jason Payne Houben Cock and a Greg Jennings Janssen Hen.

Over the last few years Bill has not raced, instead turning to the development of his own Breeding Stud, Web Page and Auction site. Bill going on to say that he has spent many hours researching and studying the performances of the top Belgium fanciers that compete in the strongest federations.

In the 2020 season from a stock loft of 24 pair over 30 winners were bred, performing for some of the best fanciers in the Central Cumberland Federation that included Paul Vassallo, Milad Bou-said, Andrew Grech, Sid Gard, Albert Sciammacca to name just a few.

Some of the best 2019/20 results competing against liberations of up to 5500 birds incudes 27 outright wins with 20 of these being in the top 20 Fed O/A positions, not to mention the many other placings that also gained top federation results.

Bill said that due to the very high demand in for his pigeons in recent times he decided (as mentioned earlier) to have his own website designed that includes photos and pedigrees of all the pigeons that he has imported along with photos of some of the successful racers. It also includes a “live auction site” where he will be offering various pigeons for sale. Bill adding that he will also be catering for other fanciers that may wish to sell some of their pigeons on his site as well, and if needed can arrange photos of those they wish to sell along with transport. Fanciers wishing to register an account to either buy and/or sell birds can do so by going to the website – www.hawapigeons.com.au

Over the years I have written many article and have when possible, tried to promote fanciers that have invested heavily into offering and promoting not just pigeons to the fraternity, but pigeon products along with special races i.e. the new “Blue Hills One loft Race” and “Pigeon Conventions”. All these things not only helps in promoting pigeon racing as a sport but gives the opportunity to fanciers to improve and test their selection, breeding and health of their birds. Many of these fanciers like Bill have put a lot on the line and what he is offering can only benefit Australian pigeon racing. I can only wish him all the best in his “New” venture.

In closing I would like to quote Amelia Earhart who once was said – “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity”. (I would like to think a fitting quote to end this article).