Because only the best will ever do.
It’s fair to say that my dad, Louis was my mentor together with my elder brother John, but from the age of 16, I was filled with a passion to learn more about this wonderful sport of ours from as many famous names as I could. Dynamic by nature, by the age of 20 things had changed at Louella, the bosses had to consult with the kid such was my desire to be ‘Top of the Game’.
With new purpose-built breeding lofts, Visitor Centre and offices, I’ve done it.
Having travelled frequently throughout Europe, the Far East and generally the World in connection with racing pigeon’s, I was the only Massarella to do this believing to obtain the very best you had to go and see for yourself and never leave without the pigeons they didn’t want to sell – I did and still do.
Much of my work at Louella, apart from running the entire breeding programme, ‘Allfair Auctions’, web development and advertising, was in connection with the search for the next ‘little big man’. In short, I had to find the next famous names, fanciers that received almost no publicity from the pigeon papers and ‘loud mouth’ auction houses but were phenomenally successful. 50 years on I’m doing exactly the same today as I did then. Global auction houses would have you believe that only they have access to the best – they absolutely don’t. And I at least understand one end of a pigeon from the other.
Whilst John and I were day-to-day together in pigeons, we now do things a little differently. But we are still as close as ever.
Back in October 2018, I embarked upon a new campaign to develop a boutique breeding centre, Massarella Racing Elite. The emphasis would be to not have only the BEST of the respective families I choose to keep, but select and mate together every single pair with my own hands, to keep no more pigeons than I could take care of with only a little help on basics, take care of my customers 100% myself and at the same time keeping prices of my stock affordable.