GERARD KOOPMAN THE END OF AN ERA - PART 1

We can't ignore it. The news that caused the most fuss in pigeon country this year was undoubtedly the announced farewell to the colombophily of what is more than likely one of the greatest surviving names in modern pigeon racing. Gerard Koopman, ever humble, but already a sports legend in his lifetime.
Naturally, during this talk we will talk about “the end of an era,” however, much more we will simply talk about Gerard's life and work, his travels, his exploration of the world and life. We will engage in conversation with a man who stands on the threshold of the beginning of a new era. A conversation, then, about these and many other milestones in the life of Gerard Koopman, the gentlest champion the sport has ever known.
Thus, on a mist-shrouded, drizzling November day, we set out for Ermerveen, a hamlet in the very Dutch province of Drenthe. This place was literally put on the world map by Gerard. Feel free to do the test, type the town name into Google and the first search result is “Gerard Koopman pigeons.”
We have landed in the Holland of postcards, vast polder landscapes, sleek rows of trees, endless canals and streams, picturesque hallmark farmhouses and, of course, the most famous windmills in the world. The clogs, tulips and maatjesharing were still missing to complete the list of clichés. This is the setting, the decorum, for the story Koopman!
Everything began, obviously, long ago in primeval times, but we skip quite a bit to the historic year 1915. The world was on fire, all over the globe young men were losing their lives because of the folly of old men. The Ijzervlakte in Flanders had been recreated into a scene from Dante's inferno. New Amsterdam, however, was far away from the slaughterhouse with the poppies, and life here was quiet as ever and went its ordinary, leisurely course.
On May 31, 1915, a son, Cornelis “Johnny” Koopman, was born into the traditional farming family of Harmina and Jacob Koopman. In those days there was no television, but there was a minister, and so Cornelis grew up with six brothers and five sisters. Why Johnny? Because Dine Moes, the family's German maid, thought the name Cornelis was too difficult. Sometimes explanations are very simple!
We press the flush button again for a moment and end up on January 31, 1938. The whole of the Netherlands is in an uproar. After all, at Soestdijk Palace, Her Majesty Juliana had given birth to a hefty sprout of a princess, Beatrix. For Cornelis, however, this day would prove historic for an entirely different reason. For that day his eye first fell on the beautiful Jansje Keen. She would become the love of his life, his rock, the yin to his yang, the woman who would bear his offspring.
Apparently they could not wait for the capitulation on May 10, '45, because on March 27 of that year Jansje and Cornelis got married. During this marriage Jansje Cornelis would bestow four sons Jaap, Jan-Egbert, Willem-Harminus and the benjamin, Gerard. Cornelis was a simple farmer, but Jansje came from a family that was in business, she breathed commerce, entrepreneurship flowed through her veins. Besides the small farm there was an egg business and in 1965 they started a new trading company for grains, fertilizer, seed potatoes and things like that, the local farmers' union so to speak.
After their marriage, the brand new couple moved into a house on the Zijtak Oostzijde. Cornelis had been passionate about pigeon racing ever since he was still wearing shorts. With a new house, a new loft had to be built immediately. A new loft must have pigeons and so Cornelis got on his bicycle and went to Coevorden to get pigeons from the Gossen brothers for 60 guilders (€30). Sixty guilders was an average monthly salary in those days. He joined “De Snelvlieger” in Nieuw-Amsterdam and soon became very involved in the club, although just like at home and at the company it was Jansje who pulled the cart. History is full of strong women and they are not all called Cleopatra, Margaret Thatcher or Rosa Parks.
Cornelis was a more than decent fancier. In the club and also regionally he was always among the best. So playing and breeding with pigeons went quite well for him. However, his greatest talent, as it would turn out later, was breeding pigeons. Jaap also got interested in pigeons and eventually started his own loft on the parental property. Gerard, meanwhile, played soccer. Whether a potential Messi was lost to him due to a meniscus injury will forever remain shrouded in mists.
Gerard is quiet and humble, but make no mistake, he is a born winner. He wants to be able to excel at something, to be the best at something. Merckx also does not shout that he was the best, in interviews he is quiet and modest, on the bike, however, he was a winning glutton, the one and only Cannibal. So with soccer gone, glutton Gerard had to look for something else to (try to) excel at.
One morning little Gerard got up, stepped up to father Cornelis and said, “I would love to play with the pigeons with you!” This is truly a historic moment in modern pigeon racing. This is little Gerard's first step in an adventure that would lead to the very highest global stages in pigeon racing. “That's one small step for Gerard, one giant leap for pigeon sport.”
That timid, somewhat shy little of Johnny Koopman would grow into one of the all-time great pigeon fanciers in history. Janssen, Van Loon, Klak, Van Dyck.... In this list the name Koopman will go into the history books.
Of course, we did not drive from the Kempen region to Ermerveen in gray, dirty weather for nothing. Hereby we keep this introductory history for what it is and let Gerard himself speak. Interviews and deadpan conversations with Gerard are always a pleasure. After all, Gerard Koopman is not a fancy talker, but he can talk very nicely.

DD: Gerard, first of all thank you for the warm welcome, for the delicious sandwiches and thank Wan (Maniwan Hausai, Gerard's wife since 2021) for the fresh Thai spring rolls, they were delicious.
Gerard: (laughs) Yes, she can. (looks after her lovingly)

DD: We are now going to enjoy our spring rolls, sit, and listen. The floor is yours now. Surely we can say without much exaggeration that you are one of the most famous pigeon fanciers in the world. How and where did Gerard Koopman's story start?
Gerard: It all started here in Nieuw-Amsterdam. By the way, do you know where that name comes from? This used to be all peatland. At some point all the land here was bought up by businessmen from Amsterdam. Hence the locals started calling this area New Amsterdam. So now you know that too. (laughs) I'll start again with the story.
So in New Amsterdam, on my parents' farm. Then later they had the business, a wholesale and retail business in all kinds of agricultural products, and under my mother's impulse it grew and became bigger and bigger. Father was a very good man, a good man, an even better father, but he was not ambitious. He even used to make deliveries by bakfiets, he was not averse to hard work, but he was not the entrepreneur. My mother came from a family of tradesmen. Her parents owned a garage/bus business. Mother was definitely the driving force behind the business. I undoubtedly got my mercantile spirit from her.

DD: So Koopman has his Koopman spirit not from Koopman, but from the daughter of a Koopman?
Gerard: (laughs loudly) You could put it that way yes! We really did all kinds of things, there were chickens and we also did some contract work. I did two years of Technical school, I thought, tinkering things that suits me. When I was 18, however, my mother got sick and I stayed home to work in the business. I did that all my life, until I became a pigeon professional of course.
Later I obtained my middle-class diploma. However, that was not much. That was a piece of paper you needed to start your own business. I used to run the store and my brother took care of the wholesale business and at one point even had his own little factory of dog and cat food. Because my brother had the wholesale business, I could of course buy everything cheaply. That way we were naturally cheaper than the competition. Yes, those years we did good business.
There were quite a few pigeon fanciers here in the area in those years. At a certain moment (1967) we became distributor/importer of Mariman feed mixtures. Thanks to this distribution, we went to many places, for example, we often had a promotion stand at championship days. We met a lot of people and built up useful contacts, both in the Netherlands and in Belgium.
Through those contacts, among others, more and more pigeon products were added. Baskets, dishes, by-products, you know. We once mixed pigeon feed ourselves, somewhere between five and ten years. Then we started working with the Beyers company.

DD: All that time you were a pigeon fancier yourself?
Gerard: Yes indeed. Pigeons had fascinated me for a long time and since I had stopped playing soccer I had completely focused on that. I had the feeling that I could do that. That feeling is important to me. So I once played checkers, I was even at the local checkers club here.
I certainly wasn't bad at that level. In checkers you have these fixed ways of playing, setups, that you use to trap your opponent to win easily. They work very well against lesser players, but against experienced players who are familiar with these setups, they don't stand a chance.
You don't learn anything from that and you will never become a better player. So I soon realized that I didn't have enough talent to become really very good at checkers, and then I quit because then it feels pointless.
Unintentionally, I did learn a lesson from that which I later applied in the pigeon world. You must not go for quick success, but you must think in the long term. (laughs) That's usually how it is with life lessons, in the moment itself you don't realize that you are experiencing them, that realization and that wisdom come later.

DD: And with pigeons you thought you could win?
Gerard: Yes! (laughs) When I wanted to start with pigeons my father gave me a small loft with 13 widowers selected by him. Every week I bet against my brother Jaap for a guilder and I always said to him: “Get the money ready, I will win today! That desire to win has always been there and also the love for pigeons, which I obviously got from father. He was not driven enough to become a champion, but he was crazy about pigeons. Neither of us could imagine life without pigeons I think.

DD: And so Gerard the entrepreneur combined running a business with pigeon racing?
Gerard: Yes indeed, those pigeons have actually always been there. I was never completely alone in that either. First I played with my father and later also with my brother Jaap, and even later I always had help. That is also necessary, I like to play with many pigeons and one of my pillars is a lot of training, laying a good foundation. My pigeons have to have three middle distance races in their wings before they can start on a 500 km race. If necessary, we drive ourselves. Jaap or I often drove to Belgium, up to the French border, to release pigeons.

DD: Ah that's how you ended up in Belgium!
Gerard: (laughs) No, I've been coming to you for much longer. Through Mariman we had contacts in Belgium for a long time. Of course we also read De Duif, from that newspaper I got a lot of knowledge and information. I had already understood for a long time that pigeon play and the quality of the pigeons in Belgium were of a much higher level. In those days of course, the latter is no longer true. (laughs exuberantly)
No, no I owe a lot to Belgium. As I said before, my father was a very sweet man, but not ambitious enough. I have had a lot of help from my father during my life, but my knowledge of pigeons, that comes from other teachers.
My father was someone who always went for quality. If you had to buy a tractor or a new machine, he didn't mind a guilder and always opted for quality. The same goes for pigeons. We bought pigeons from Janssen and Van Loon.
This is how I came into contact with all those Belgian pigeon legends, thanks in part to my father. I visited the brothers in Arendonk more than once. From Jules Ryckaert from St. Amandsberg I learned a lot about nutrition and the more scientific side of the sport.
However, my greatest teacher was Louis Van Loon. My greatest knowledge about pigeons, and certainly about pigeon breeding, I gained from him. I made lists of questions, and every time I visited Louis or Jules, I went down my list. It was admirable how such a man as Van Loon always made time for a small beginner from far away New Amsterdam.

DD: This brings to mind something I saw pass recently on Facebook. An enthusiast posted a story. He had sent an email because he had questions about the Koopman all-in-one blend. Very pleasantly surprised was that man when he received a phone call a few days later on a Sunday morning from a certain Gerard Koopman with the answer to his questions. You are not too shy to speak to a “normal” fancier.
Gerard: Look, I obviously earn something from those mixes with my name on them. So just business-wise I think that's my duty to that company. But actually I find it quite normal that I do something like that. You do something like that out of courtesy and out of love for your sport, don't you? Van Loon and all the other greats once made time for me. So who am I not to make time for a small fan who has a question? It's not like I have to make hundreds of those calls a week either.

DD: So we were with Gebr. Janssen and Van Loon pigeons.
Gerard: Louis (Van Loon) was so much more than someone we got pigeons from. Of course we got pigeons there, and good ones. But above all he was my greatest teacher. I rode my bike from New Amsterdam to Poppel and back. I would do anything to hang on Louis' every word.

DD: Louis' lessons clearly paid off, and he must have also seen that he didn't just have a youngster in front of him, but a young man with a lot of talent and potential. It seems that you chose the pigeons you bought from the “mannekes”.
Gerard: That's right yes, I chose the pigeons. Indeed, I apparently had a better eye for that than father. But we didn't get that far immediately. It took a while before we could buy our first direct pigeons from Arendonk. We had been very good with pigeons from Anema (Eefde) who had Janssen pigeons. In that period, late 70's, I also bought pigeons from Herman Aheln (Nieuw-Dordrecht) once. His “48” was a superior pigeon. It too had Janssen blood. Also the legendary “Kanon” of Wout Smeulders was in it. But of course I wanted direct Janssen-pigeons as soon as possible, so we went there. Of course I also wanted out of their best. In those days they cost 2500 guilders and that was still too much, I did not have that, I had to save for that.
Somewhere in '76-'77, I had saved enough money and we bought good pigeons from the brothers and really from their good ones, from the “019” and the “Jonge Merckx” and so on. “Gouden Duifje” (B81-6116734) was one of those pigeons, a pigeon that would later become a matriarch in our loft. I also bought a youngster from the “Good Pigeon” then, however, I wanted to buy two. “Just wait,” said Louis, ”You have one now, just wait.” And so I had to wait a full year for another one from the “Goed duifje.” Another amusing anecdote is the following. In 1976 I absolutely wanted something from the “Rocket Man.” I had hoped that eggs were cheaper than youngsters. Once I was with the brothers, two of them went to the loft. One held the egg up to the light and said, “yes, this is a youngster.” So the eggs were as expensive as the young. (laughs)
Also commercially, those Janssen pigeons were interesting. After all, not many people here in the area had them. Arendonk was still far from New Amsterdam in those days. So we could get rid of youngsters from those pigeons here. We sold those first Janssen-pigeons via Jan (Hermans).

DD: How did you actually meet Jan?
Gerard: I don't actually remember that, it was so long ago. It must have been through Stan Raeymakers. Through our Belgian contacts with Mariman we once met Stan and through him certainly Jan. My father and I have known Jan for so long that I never really thought about it.
I do remember that first auction. At one point I didn't think they were going well enough. “The Zwollenaar” was up for bid and the bids were not high enough for my liking. I then started bidding on my own pigeon. (laughs) Little did I know how that worked. Jan then made it clear to me that you shouldn't do that. (laughs even more exuberantly) That auction was also a turning point for me. I realized that it is not about pedigrees, the quality of your loft is about performance. Just having Janssen pigeons was not enough. There had to be performance in return. Sporting the upper hand automatically ensures commercial success.

DD: The pigeons also began to play an increasing role in your life.
Gerard: That came gradually. My performance got better and better and therefore I could also ask more and more for my pigeons. That is also a step you have to dare to take. You have to dare to value yourself and your pigeons. Dirk Van Dyck for example, a lovely man and much too good, didn't dare to do that. “Yes but Gerard, I can't do that, save the price, can I? People are going to think that's too much.” (laughs) Really a much too good guy that Dirk (silent for a moment) So I can do that, probably that's the business side I got from my mother. But the pigeons started to yield better and better and then of course it becomes a more important aspect. Not that I ever played for the money, it's a side effect of my pigeon playing. Sean Kelly once said, if you cycle for the money you won't succeed, if you cycle to win you will make a good living. In business too, I am someone of good preparation and laying a solid foundation first. I never go for quick success, I always try to build something that is solid towards the future. I am for the long effort. To compare it again to racing, winning a sprint is nice, but that's one short moment of glory. Winning a long solo in the mountains is still of a different order for me. So I phased out the work on the business and gradually built up the pigeon career. First someone joined the business so I could free up more time for my pigeons. At the end of the 90's the business was finally sold so I could focus completely on the pigeons. That helped, because in 1994 we became world champions. (laughs) In '96-'97 we then built here (in Ermerveen) and then moved. Of course, the pigeon lofts were immediately added. (laughs)

DD: I once learned from Jan that you used to be rather shy and even somewhat introverted. You're not a roper or table jumper now, but you've changed dramatically in that. You seem much more self-confident to me now, as a businessman I think you have to be self-confident too. You're a world authority in your field and you're aware of that. When do you think that turnaround came?
Gerard: In itself, it's a gradual process, but of course there are milestones, turning points in your life. Getting married was an important moment for me. In retrospect, that may not have been the perfect marriage, which is why it also went wrong, but at that moment it is something that gives you self-confidence. You accomplished something. Another milestone was my first trip to Japan. That too was with Jan, it was really Jan who introduced me to Asia. I had never flown, for us traveling meant going on a trip or staying with family or in the most extreme case going on vacation to Austria. And suddenly you set foot on Japanese soil. There is hardly a greater contrast than between New Amsterdam and Tokyo. From a farmer's hole in the frog country to one of the largest metropolises in the world. At that moment I really did feel like a little Dutch boy in the big bad world. I saw so many things there that I had never seen before. I remember a little child nibbling on a crab leg. Very normal there, but I didn't know what I was seeing. That seemed almost from another planet all together. No, I was totally impressed. Homesickness certainly played a role and sometimes it all became too much. I was closer to crying than laughing. Fortunately Jan was there, and I am so grateful to him. In retrospect, however, you learn a lot from such a moment. At such a moment you can crawl pathetically into a corner and cry or shrug your shoulders and carry on. Maybe I didn't fully realize it at that moment, but apparently I did the latter.

DD: And in the meantime, you've become a real globetrotter.
Gerard: (laughs) I do now, but absolutely not then. You grow as a person, even in that. Now I can indeed enjoy traveling and discovering new things. Those first trips with The Dove to Japan, China and Taiwan and so on were quite exciting. Sometimes we made it exciting ourselves. I remember a trip to Japan. There were about twenty of us there, a group led by Jan and Rik (Hermans). Together with part of the group, I had gone for a bite to eat before customs control. It was pleasant and we lost track of time, I think. Suddenly we heard a familiar voice through the airport public address system calling out our names, in Dutch, asking us to make our way to the gate as quickly as possible. That was Rik Hermans behind the microphone. (laughs heartily) The pilot actually wanted to leave already, but fortunately Jan was very good at grounding planes. It took some doing, getting priority at the controls and all, but at last we made it to the gate. The plane finally took off with everyone on board and with only an hour's delay. (laughs)

DD: So no doubt you have a mass of travel stories?
Gerard: Absolutely, but I said it before, I'm not good at regurgitating stories. Tricky huh for an interview? (laughs) Wait, I know another one. We flew to New York, you know, that other New Amsterdam (laughs). As a result of terrible weather we ended up having to land in Chicago, which was quite a hassle back then. In America I also had to speak at a convention in Los Angeles. I could not do that at all, I had never done anything like that before. My English was far from perfect. I was very nervous. For something like that, however, there was always rescue angel Jan. He had a whole text written out for me to just read and that's how it all worked out. This story reminds me of another funny anecdote about Jan and Piet Kuypers in Japan. Piet also had to give a lecture there, but they couldn't speak English. Fortunately, they had prepared well. The plan was that Piet would read his lecture in Dutch and Jan would then bring the English translation to the audience. Pete completely failed to stick to his text there. All that he said had nothing to do with pigeons. He told a whole story about masonry and things like that. Jan, however, with difficulty but with a straight face, brought the correct English version and nobody in the hall understood what was going on. (laughs) Except of course Ken (Kenichi Yoshihara), who understands English and Dutch. That one also had all the trouble in the world there to keep himself serious. (yawns)

DD: Because of your pigeons, you are literally world famous. In China, you even have friends in the highest echelons.
Gerard: Haha, yes that's a nice story too actually. Years back I got an email from Pamela, a Chinese business associate from Beijing. She wanted to buy pigeons for a friend. At that time I didn't have anything I could offer right away, but later I was sure I could. We agreed to discuss this further during my next visit to China a few months later. No sooner said than done. So a few months later, I went to China. One day I have a lunch appointment there with Pamela. I meet her at a restaurant and she has a friend with her, Deng Lin. A lady of about fifty. Very posh, but also very friendly and sweet. We discuss our business and especially have a very pleasant lunch. I say goodbye to the ladies and I leave. Just after leaving, my driver asks if I know who these ladies were. “Of course,” I said, ”those are Pamela and Deng Lin.” (laughs) “Right,” he said, “and Deng Lin is the eldest daughter of Deng Xiaoping.” (yawns)

DD: As in Deng Xiaoping, Mao's successor and the second president of the People's Republic of China?
Gerard: (laughs) The same one, yes. But, as I said, a very kind lady. A very ordinary woman who behaved very normally. So Lin's father was the second man after Mao, and Pamela's father was once a general under Mao at the time of the Chinese Revolution. So their fathers knew each other and so the daughters were friends.

DD: And they just sat there? Without an army of bodyguards?
Gerard: I think so. Or I just didn't notice them of course. Maybe all the other people in that restaurant were security, I didn't know. In those days in China, you had to be scared of nothing. (laughs)

DD: Gerard Koopman, friend to the greats.
Gerard: Well especially with their daughters. (laughs) Really very nice ladies. Later I stayed in one of her apartments, well, that must have belonged to Father State probably. She asked me to name a good pigeon after her. It had to be a cock, because they have more offspring. That's Chinese humor. (laughs) At that time I had no pigeon that qualified, but a little later I named a winning pigeon “Deng Lin's Favourite”. She happy again, too. (laughs)

DD: All nice stories, let's look at the other side of the coin. What countries did you not like?
Gerard: One country that really affected me was Bangladesh. I never want to go there again. The poverty there is so abject, it really makes you uncomfortable. You know that, you know the images from TV, but when you are confronted with it in person it hits you hard. How grateful I am that I was born in the Netherlands. What are we complaining because a pigeon flight is disappointing, no that's nothing. I feel more than blessed with my life and I am very grateful for that.

DD: Certainly and surely you have had a very successful life so far, however, no one's path is always on roses. Let's go straight to the extreme, what the absolute low point for you in your life?
Gerard: Like many highs, life naturally also consists of several lows. The death of loved ones, illness, things like that. In itself that's all normal, that's part of life, disappointments, setbacks, you have to learn to deal with that, that forms you. However, that is all easily said, when you are at a low point, it is of little use, you have to go through it first. For me that low point was the period after my divorce. I really did suffer seriously from that. I got divorced in 2001 and I can say that I didn't really get over that until 2003.

DD: How important is your wife in your life?
Gerard: I think very important. Your partner is so much hey, your buddy, your sounding board. You have to keep your eyes wide open before marriage and closed during marriage. I'm afraid I did it the other way around during my first marriage. (laughs)
No, without any reproach, let it be clear that my first marriage was not a complete success. Although there were certainly good times, the combination just didn't sit well. My ex still lives around here, and we're just friendly with each other now. It was all more sensitive the first few years, but time heals and now, thankfully, we act very normal to each other. However, it is clear that we were not right for each other. After all, there is no shame in that.
Again, of course, setbacks are part of life and you learn from mistakes. At least that's the idea. I do think I learned from my mistakes, too bad of course that you have to make them first. Getting older and wiser is mainly an accumulation of mistakes. In that way, my first marriage was an important milestone and a learning moment. (laughs)
My current wife Wan suits me very well, though. She supports me in what I do, in my decisions. We discuss important matters, she thinks about the business, she receives clients and so on. It all goes very naturally and smoothly. Oh yes, and she makes delicious spring rolls.

DD: Delicious spring rolls! They are all eaten!

To be continued...

Mike Verbruggen (Sportblad De Duif)