It's America's national pastime, but during the 1920s it was a small town in the Cotswolds that was flying the flag for baseball in the UK.

At the same time Babe Ruth was leading the New York Yankees to the top of the sport across the pond, Chipping Norton were being crowned British champions in back-to-back years.

But in a wait that's taken longer than the Red Sox needed to break the Curse of the Bambino, the Cotswold market town's success had never been officially recognised.

Now, a century on from the team's first triumph, the championship has finally been certified by the British Baseball Federation - with a plaque celebrating the team recently unveiled at a local museum.

At the forefront of 1926 Chipping Norton baseball team was its founder Fred Lewis - a local undertaker with a fine sporting pedigree.

"He didn't like cricket, he didn't like football, but otherwise he was a great sportsman. He played a very good game of tennis and golf," his granddaughter Jill Kelly said.

"But he just absolutely loved baseball, he really did."

Although most people associate baseball with the USA and its major league - the game was in fact first played on the landed estates of Surrey.

But it was in the US that the game was first truly associated and organised. Over the years, it has gone on to become just about as American as apple pie.

In the early 1900s, it was Lewis who brought the game to the rolling hills of the Cotswolds - founding the Chipping Norton Baseball Club after seeing baseball in a sporting pamphlet.

Bill Williams, a former PE teacher who now volunteers at Chipping Norton Museum, said Lewis was "just a man who had a finger in every Chipping Norton pie".

"In the early days, they had very little equipment, but he designed and, as far as I'm aware, made the kit that the [baseball] teams played in."

"He did do other things, obviously, but I think it was very much the centre of his life."

By the roaring 1920s, Lewis had adopted the Field of Dreams motto "If you build it, they will come" and turned Chipping Norton into a hotbed of British baseball.

"By all accounts, they would attract large crowds on a Sunday afternoon - sometimes two, three hundred people would come along," Williams said.

In 1926, Chipping Norton beat the London Americans at Stamford Bridge, now more famously known as the home of Chelsea FC - to win their first national title.

A local newspaper report from the time said Lewis had told his defeated opponents that the secret of his team's success was "in their blood".

The club would retain the title the following year, but Williams said "things started to fade as Fred got older".

"When he died in 1960 at age 81, the club sort of fizzled out."

Neither of their national titles had ever been officially recognised by what would go on to be the governing body of the sport in the UK, British Baseball.

That was until earlier this month, after Williams led a years-long campaign to have the Chipping Norton club's achievements officially acknowledged.

But that changed last Saturday, as Williams and Kelly unveiled a plaque at Chipping Norton Museum to celebrate the success. It was approved by British Baseball.

"[It's] fantastic, I'm so chuffed that we finally got to do this," Williams said.

"There was a point where I thought this might never happen, but thankfully the British Baseball Federation have now officially recognised Chippy."

"I suppose it is [mission accomplished] really."

Kelly, who is in her 90s and now lives in Tewkesbury, said her grandfather Fred Lewis would have been "so pleased" with the recognition.

"He'd be absolutely delighted that the game had been recognised, mind you, you wouldn't have been able to stop him talking about it."