Both Mike Starford and his coaching colleague Roy Bradley were becoming disillusioned with negative aspects of their club – Middlesbrough and Cleveland Harriers at the time. Both decided to resign.
Together they brainstormed what the future could bring and decided to form a small club that would provide the individual athlete with affiliations to the various athletic governing bodies – so they could choose to compete in only their selected event. That was the theory anyway!
In September an application to form the new club was sent to the Northern Counties A.A. and a constitution formulated. The name selected was ‘Cleveland Athletic Club’. Cleveland having been created in 1974 (at least we lasted longer than their concept) The name wasn’t acceptable to the local governing bodies so it was either wait until the next meeting or come up with an alternative in the space of 10 minutes. Mike and Roy chose the latter and came up with Mandale A.C. This was taken from the name of ‘Mandale marshes’ and ‘Mandale cut’ both where Teesside Retail Park is today.