My name is Mandy Bradford - formerly Holt, any old timers reading this will remember me as the scorer fo the Yorkshire Yankees and occasional scorer for the Bladerunners when Sue Wright - nee Perry was not available. I was prompted to write this when I read the letter from Paul Perrozzi whos antics out in centre field I remember well.

We were talking about The Bladerunners whilst on holiday and we decided that the idea along with the first bat and glove first appeared in summer 1982 with the first games being 1983. At first it was just another one of Bushey's daft ideas and involved perhaps a dozen or so lads and lasses messing around in Graves park which was local to us.

Our life seemed to revolve around baseball for 10 years my own involvement ending in 1993 following the birth of my daughter Lucy ( one of her first outings was to a Bladerunners game ) at the time we were playing on the playing fields on Carterknowle Road, and I went along to pass on some tips to the new volunteer scorer. One of my other roles was to represent the Bladerunners at BBF meetings and Yorkshire region meetings in the late 1980s early 1990s.

We still have some of the early press cuttings and reports from the Green 'Un along with a few old score sheets if anyone is interested , although I did have a bit of a clear out a few months ago and got rid of a bit of stuff.

I remember all the teams Paul listed in his letter along with a lot of the characters that played for them; the Leeds pitcher that Paul refers to was Rick Strout, who's step dad Phil Koda managed Leeds for a while, Rick had a try out for the New York Yankees but not as a pitcher, he made it to the second cut. Other memorable names from the Leeds side were Ian Smythe and Charlie Housley.

The main blasts from the past for the Bladerunners were Steve Herbert - manager, Carl Bradford - pitcher, 2nd base, fund raiser, umpire, Mark Cooper - catcher, pitcher, 2nd base, Steve Kimpton - (lefty) 1st/3rd base, organiser of the 100 club. Steve Parkin - 2nd base, baseball fanatic/ tactician, Joe Muino - Shortstop, banana head, comedian,Brothers Dave & Chris Askham- 1st/3rd base, outfield, Tony Wright - outfield, John Sugden ( John the foot ), Chris Barker, Darren Hunt, Paul Perrozzi, Roy Coomes, Paul Jones, Fred Sprague, Richard Woodhead and many more sorry if I missed your name out, we did also have a couple of visiting Americans who played for the team for a short while but were legends in Bladerunners history Dick Danderand the pitcher ( build a field and he will come) and a guy called Rick whos surname escapes me who caught for a season or so.

One other name I feel I ought to mention is Amelia Dewing then girlfriend of Steve Kimpton who along with myself and Sue Perry sat on the 3rd base line week in week out but she also held the distinction of donning the Bladerunners blue and white overshirt on numerous occasions when we found ourselves short of players.

If any of the old gang do read this it would be great to hear from them - never know perhaps we could arrange a short challange match, old team versus new team.

Mandy Bradford (nee Holt) - Bladerunner 1983 - 1993