An ‘ode’, a ‘homage’ to our deceased sport friend Pros Roosen from Kermt!

When making the weekly reports during this period about the ‘national winners’ you keep coming across people who are in a ‘celebrating mood’… after all, you don’t ‘win’ every day. Here a person often forgets… that winning and losing are often so close together… luck is often a happy coincidence! That was made clear today, because at the moment we are all in the camp of ‘losers’… because Pros Roosen is no longer with us! We have just received the news… completely ‘out of the blue’! We were very upset for a while… Pros Roosen, the man we got to know so well over the last few years… through making the numerous loft reports over the Pros Roosen colony,  through several visits to the Holrakker, through a few ‘dinners’, through the monthly ‘network events’ in de Loanton where he was a ‘regular client’ and ‘welcome guest’, through the more or less ‘weekly telephone calls’ and contact which he had with him…. so much so that he had become part of our intimate circle of friends … and now, he has been so suddenly snatched from the earthly existence ! It gives you something to think about! We crawled uncomprehending behind our computer …staring into space… it can’t be true

PDuring his life Pros travelled roads ‘strewn with success’… he had more than his fair share of the winnings… as a successful businessman… as a successful pigeon fancier… as a loving father for his family. Yet he also had more than his fair share of ‘adversity’… not in the least by the ‘unsuccessful operation’ on his back… which left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life! But Pros fought back… partly thanks to his large circle of friends who gave him new ‘courage’… and of course thanks to his pigeons! Although the solitary moments were often quite difficult to bear… we know what we are talking about… because we will never forget our very last visit to Pros in Kermt about 2 months ago… when there was just the two of us in the house and he asked me to listen to him for ten minutes. He then revealed to me his life story ‘after’ the unsuccessful operation on his back… how bloody hard it was to bear his ‘cross’… until he burst out crying! Apparently he had to get it off his chest… he had to tell someone… it did him good! |It’s only then that you realise what’s going on in this person’s head… the awareness that it would ‘never’ be right… the daily suffering  and the daily pain it brought with it, but that he anxiously hid it from friends and family… It only gives you more admiration for the ‘courage’ and ‘spirit’ he radiated… especially when he was amongst his many pigeon friends!
Because Pros Roosen was all “pigeon”… Pros simply breathed ‘pigeon sport’… it was his life. He was a ‘monument’… and a real 'ambassador' for our favourite sport. Pros is praised world wide for his loyalty, his input for the pigeon sport as founder of various organisations, initiatives and other events behind the pigeon sport… with the aim of promoting our pigeon sport. But, above all, Pros was of course a 'top pigeon fancier' in heart and soul, who continuously  stood at the top of our pigeon sport for more than 40 years, with an unequalled honours list… because in all disciplines of our sport, both in Sprint, Middle Distance as Long Distance… Pros achieved triumphs that were almost impossible to match.

HHe stepped into the pigeon sport sometime in 1965… not just to race pigeons! No… Pros wanted to compete with the best… and he knew better than anybody… for this he needed ‘good pigeons’! Pros didn’t scrimp on the pennies (or euro’s) … if he had set his sights on something, he couldn’t rest until he could take it back to the Holrakker, because… you have to give him one thing… his preference for ‘top pigeons’! It formed the ‘basis’ for an overwhelming series of top performances, glorious victories, resounding titles and Ace pigeons… over the years! His first top pigeons arrived during the years 1972-74 from Jef Van Sweefelt and Jan Grondelaers… the very first ‘wonder pigeon’ in the form of the ‘Supercrack 327’ saw the light of day… he became a  ‘stock bear’ in a thousand which up until today can still be found in the pedigree of many a top pigeon in Kermt! At the end of 1977 Limburg was on its head… when Pros bought the capital ‘Fabiola’ in he auction of Jef Carlens’, and she immediately made an impression on the further development of the Pros Roosen stock

HIt hadn’t escaped the notice of Pros that a ‘small fancier’ from Wommelgem in Antwerp regularly gave pigeon lessons in the then ‘high school’ of the ‘Union Antwerp’… namely Jos Soontjens! Since 1982 Pros has bought 250 direct Soontjens pigeons… and used them to wipe away the competition there in Kermt. So much so that today we can ask the question as to whether or not it was Pros Roosen who made the ‘Soontjens pigeons’ world famous… his share was in any case far from mean! These were the glory years of stock father ‘Tom’ and both his sons ‘Computer I’ and ‘Computer II’. Pigeons that were simply a ‘size’ too big for the competition… Pros simply ran circles around his opponents, and so also his many ‘friends’… so much so that he started to lose his friends because of it! And Pros couldn’t understand this… he thought that this could never be the intention of the ‘pigeon game’! Time to change things then… Pros said farewell to the sprint and small middle distance… and left for the provincial and national ‘grand middle distance’! The majority of his famous ‘speed demons ‘were given to friends for ‘free’… and they took over the torch in the speed happenings in the area! Because this was Pros to a tea… a man with a ‘golden heart’… and as honest as the day is long…!!

PPros stood then for a new challenge, and discovered that he could use some reinforcements to couple with his ‘rapid’ Soontjens pigeons… to add more ‘power’ and ‘endurance’! He found it in the ‘Chateauroux’ in the public auction of Romain Schots in 2001… an unbelievable ‘stock bear’… it didn’t escape the notice of Pros either! The purchase of the ‘Chateauroux’ was also a direct hit… new crack pigeons saw the light of day… wherefrom the ‘Tarzan’ and the ‘Flits’ portray a leading role in the breeding loft at the moment!
 Pros soon wanted to take on the challenge of the ‘light middle distance’… and for this he visited the total auction of De Rauw-Sablon in search of reinforcements! He found them in the ‘Super breeder Freddy’ (a direct Vandenheede pigeon nota bene, hence his name)… yes, the father of the just as legendary ‘Dromer’ by De Rauw-Sablon! From the very first breed with this ‘Super breeder Freddy’ it was ‘bingo’… because coupled with the ‘Wittikske Chateauroux’ (daughter of the Chateauroux)… he produced the super crack ‘Blauwen Prins’… later followed by the ‘Fantast’ and many, many more…!!! His children and grandchildren gave the  Pros Roosen colony even more world fame… so much so that Kermt became a real ‘place of pilgrimage’… for pigeon fanciers from all over the world… in search of descendants of the wondrous ‘Super breeder Freddy’! A pigeon which gave Pros the necessary ‘will to live’ in the often sober and difficult days. Just last Monday… grandchildren of this wonder boy put the Pros Roosen colony in the ‘national spotlight’ once again with 4-9-13-16° prize Provincial Argenton against 1.689 youngsters… pigeons which will probably all end within the ‘Top 150 national’… once again formidable! But also then the very last exploit to be written down in Kermt… because just 2 days later, on Wednesday the 11th of August, Pros suddenly passed away… he has exchanged his ‘earthly existence’ for a ‘heavenly’ one! A great loss for his family and numerous friends… but in particular also a great loss for our pigeon sport… which has lost one of its ‘figureheads’, its ‘pioneers’. He had immense success in the pigeon sport, the highlights being the winning of the 1° National Bourges and the ‘Primus inter Pares’ y the Bruges Barcelona club! Pros was a living ‘encyclopaedia’ over our pigeon sport… but what we will always remember… is the person ‘Pros Roosen’… the  affable man, a barrel full of ‘energy ‘and the ‘joys of life’… the man with a ‘heart of gold’… the man whose motto was ‘Carpe Diem’

Pros man… we, and many with us… will miss you! But forget you… no, never! Goodbye friend…
Let us take this opportunity to offer our condolences to the family and many friends of Pros… and wish them great strength in this ‘dark period’ affecting them at the moment