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The Trees, The Trees, The Beautiful Trees.
By Phil Edwards
I played my first game in 1982 in a field on an Industrial Estate
at Llandow, South Wales with a SplatMaster pistol, grinding goggles, 2 C02 powerlets and 30 paintballs and I was instantly
hooked, I moved on to playing at Tactical Pursuits site with Cobra pumps, and quite soon made my first ever marker purchase
(a phantom) from the legendary Graham Easton in London at what later became LPS. (Not sure what it was called then) at this
time I was fortunate enough to meet Pete Robinson (Robbo of Nexus fame) and a gentleman whose name eludes me, this gentleman
asked why I had travelled all that way to buy a second-hand marker, after explaining that I was a poor Welsh boy he gave me
a gift which I still have today, this gift was an Assassin Battle Pack, a trial demo item, this was THE first back pack and
I’d been given one for free…cool huh? I Upgraded the Phantom to a replaceable barrel system (unknown in those
long gone days) and had this anodised in fluorescent pink …. Boy did that stand out or what!!!
 Richard
Steve , Martyn, Billy, Chris, Phil and Huw at the Welsh Open Tourny
Later that year after becoming a regular marshall at Tactical Pursuits
I approached the site owner about forming a team, like most site owners of that era and this, he was not too supportive, because
if he allowed it, it would mean he would lose staff whenever we played. Feeling somewhat dejected I decided to move on from
marshalling and form my own team with a close friend Chris Vaughan, the two of us along with a few other site marshalls got
together and Mostly Harmless was formed. We persuaded Huw Page and Andrew Quick, who were site regulars, to join the happy
band and this meant that we could play in the 7-man novice tourney. The first outing went reasonably well as it was local
to us in South Wales. I think we finnished 4th overall, and with that success we stretched our wings and headed for the dizzy
heights of Pond Wood Farm, Maidenhead and the ubiquitous Mr Mick Holdaway. We played for a few years at novice / am level
and returned respectable placings at each event, we maintained a hardcore of 4 players over that period as others came and
went. These were Phil, Chris, Huw and Steve Evans.
In the late 80’s the Welsh scene was starting to pick up and new teams were forming all the time, we practised regularly
(weekly sometimes) against Shadow Company , Gypsy Jokers , Spetznaz, Ace Trucking Co. and Money Inc. There was a regular series
of tourneys being played in the West Country at that time and we did our best to play as many as we could, lots of happy memories
about that era and the teams such as Jabberwocky and Tribe. We ventured around the south of England and played many locally
organised tourneys, several of the team guested for others in major events e.g. World 5 man with Gypsy Jokers, World Amateur
10 man with The Tafia, and with Shadow Company and Gypsy Jokers at several Mayhem 10 man events. Team numbers started to fall
again so a new batch were recruited, this brought Martyn, Richard, Matt and Richie. Of these Martyn and Richard were considered
the better additions to the team, in due course Richie and eventually Matt lost interest and the squad fell to a steady size
of Phil, Chris, Huw, Steve, Martyn and Richard where we would attend any 5 man events that came our way. We spent much of
our time playing in the lower ranks of the Midlands Series, enjoying most of our trips and getting generally a good reception
and achieving some pleasing results. Travelling long miles took its toll on Martyn and Richard so along with Chris they decided
to hang up their automags and take time out from the game. Around this time life started to change for many of the remaining
players, family commitments and the patter of tiny feet (bloody cats) kept several of the gang out of the scene, it became
increasingly difficult to field a squad of 5 let alone 7, so somewhat inevitably Mostly Harmless went into retirement.
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