From friends to baseball champions in three years

Nine friends who started a baseball club have become league champions less than three years after it was founded.

New Forest Thunder, based in Fawley, won the South West & Wales Baseball League and will compete in the quarter-finals of the British Baseball Federation National Play-Offs on 12 September.

The club has grown into two adult teams with more than 40 members, many of whom had never played the sport before joining.

General manager Lewis Kelly said: "I myself have only been playing baseball for three years and now I'm running the team.

"It shows that we'll bring anybody in, teach people up and just show them what baseball is all about."

The title-winning campaign has capped a rapid rise for the club since it was founded for the 2023 season.

Thunder secured the South West & Wales Baseball League Division 5 title with a 20-15 victory over Plymouth Mariners in the championship game.

It was the club's first regional title, claimed just weeks after winning the Severn Division championship.

Kelly said: "To have this early success is really brilliant and it's a testament to all the work that everybody's put in."

The club was created with the aim of growing baseball locally and building an inclusive community around the sport, he said.

Team manager Doug Sutherland said interest in baseball was increasing across the UK.

"There's over 100 teams nationwide. It's growing," he said.

"What we're finding now is Brits that used to play cricket, Brits that kind of want to try something new or have watched on television are going, 'wow, let me try'."

Kelly said increased exposure for the sport was helping attract newcomers of all abilities.

"The exposure that we've got as a sport now is brilliant to get people in, trying a new thing, and any experience level can come down and give us a try," he said.

New Forest Thunder will face Plymouth again in the quarter-finals of the British Baseball Federation National Play-Offs on 12 September.

Sutherland added that the team was "quietly confident" about its chances.