Last Tuesday's column chiefly reflected a week in Wales. Extraordinary even by Backtrack's serendipitous standards, there proves to have been a direct connection between the first two items.

The first reported the funeral, near Swansea, of former Sunderland and Wales centre-forward Trevor Ford, Britain's most expensive footballer when in October 1950 he moved from Villa Park to Roker Park for £29,500.

The second note observed a threat to the future of first-class cricket at the St Helen's ground in Swansea, inevitably recalling that it was where, on August 31 1968, Gary Sobers of Nottinghamshire hit six sixes in an over off Malcolm Nash.

The link was suspected by Joe Bradley and his ever-up-for-it mates in the Dairy Lane Bowls Club in Houghton-le-Spring. After much diligent research, we are able to confirm it.

Glamorgan's substitute fielder on that fabled summer Saturday was a 44-year-old on holiday near Swansea - none other than Trevor Ford.

The diligent research, it may be unnecessary to add, wasn't carried out by the column but by Steve Smith, a country member of the Backtrack Irregulars who lives in Oxfordshire.

After much browse beating, he discovers Wilfred Wooller's 1968 match report in the Telegraph: "Wheatley, who retired with shin soreness, was replaced by the former Welsh international Trevor Ford who is down on holiday, before Alan Rees took over."

It was the same day that Newcastle drew 1-1 before a 49,807 crowd at Sunderland - robbed, the Magpies insisted, by Billingham referee Kevin Howley - that dear old George Brown hit a hat-trick in Tow Law's 5-2 win at Ferryhill and that Darlington beat fourth division leaders Lincoln City 5-0 at home.

The star was local dentist Lance Robson, reckoned by the match reporter to be someone you loved or hated. They say much the same today about Marmite, and more of that in tomorrow's Gadfly.

Sobers' six hitting record might never have been set had not the laws of cricket been experimentally amended, yet again, that season.

Though Roger Davis caught the fifth ball inside the rope, he fell with part of his body over the boundary. After much debate, the umpire raised both arms.

"At least Nash, with four wickets for 100 to his credit, will have his name in the record books for ever," consoled the Telegraph.

Malcolm Nash always insisted that, on captain's orders, he was trying out a slower ball - and was quick to return to normal.

Now 57, Nash coaches cricket in California, enjoys the life but misses English beer. "They have micro-breweries but it's not the same as a pint of Old Peculier," he told The Guardian last year.

He also helped organise the first Under 13s game between the USA and Canada. The guest of honour was a distinguished West Indian called Sir Garfield Sobers.

Coincidence upon coincidence, another 1968 connection: Gregory Peck, the acclaimed American actor who died last week aged 87, owned Different Class - the favourite for that year's Grand National. It finished third - outclassed by Red Alligator, ridden by Brian Fletcher, trained by Denys Smith and owned by the equally-acclaimed Bishop Auckland butcher Jack Manners. (And Jack Manners made much the better sausages.)

Norman Wood in Eppleby, near Richmond, remembers the original Ford Popular, too. What was the international, he asks - and concedes that the question might be an old one - in which the hosts won but the home centre forward scored twice and was on the losing side.

It was England v Wales at Roker Park on Wednesday November 15 1950, the young Norman among the 59,316 crowd.

Though England won 4-2, through Eddie Baily (2), Jackie Milburn and Wilf Mannion, Ford - marked by ineffectual all rounder Leslie Compton - was reckoned man-of-the-match.

"Ford led the Welsh attack splendidly and showed that with adequate support he is probably the best centre-forward in Britain," said the Echo in a thinly veiled hint to the Sunderland directors.

That Thursday morning we also reported that that Consett FC had been officially praised by the FA on the DIY completion of their new stadium - "ground wrested from barren waste" - that 150 from all over the north had taken part in the cycle roller competition at the Hibernian Hall in West Stanley and that "Seaman gets 12 months for Buckingham Palace theft."

It proved not to be the venerable England goalkeeper but a drunken sailor - "breaking and entering the dwelling house of HM the King with intent to steal."

Trevor Ford, said by Frank Keating to have the build of Randolph Turpin, the good looks of James Mason and the smouldering intensity of each of them, won 38 Welsh caps.

Poor Leslie Compton, more comfortable keeping wicket for Middlesex, never won another.

Recollection in Friday's column of DCH Townsend, the last man to play cricket for England without ever having represented a first class county, stirred memories for Ian McDougall in Bishop Auckland.

Firstly, he recalled David Townsend playing for Norton at Kingsway after the war - "that distinctive striped Norton cap, modern caps are so dull by comparison" - and secondly he recalled Lt Col R T Stanyforth.

Ronald Stanyforth had represented neither county nor country before being invited to captain England on the 1927-28 tour to South Africa, scored 12 runs in six Test innings and, though a capable wicket keeper, was never capped again.

The following summer, he made three appearances for Yorkshire. "His Chelsea birthplace," Bill Frindall once wrote, "must have been a shade embarrassing." Stanyforth died in Yorkshire in 1964.

Then there was CL Townsend, David's father, who as a 16-year-old in 1893 became the only bowler in first class cricket history to claim a hat-trick of stumpings. The feat is now commemorated by a beer made by Brain's Brewery in Cardiff though Hat Trick bitter may more greatly acknowledge wicket keeper than bowler. The man with the gloves was W H Brain - keeping in the family, as it were.

NO one has been able to recall the football match between Co Durham and South Africa, circa 1954 at the Victoria Ground in Hartlepool.

Durham County RFU secretary Chris McLoughlin points out, however, that the first match between Durham County and South Africa at the Vic - oval ball, of course - was on October 6 1906. The visitors won 24-4.

Durham's wing that day was Fred Chapman - then Westoe, later Hartlepool Rovers - who when England beat Wales in 1910 became the first man to score in an international at Twickenham.

THE only two of Middlesbrough FC's English internationals to share a surname (Backtrack, June 13) were Joe Peacock who won three caps around 1930 and Alan Peacock who gained six - four with the Boro, two at Leeds - in the early 60s. Well done to Fred Alderton in Peterlee, right again.

Steve Smith, Irregular as clockwork, today invites readers to name the four wicketkeepers who stood in the same Test match for England - fairly recently, too.

We're standing up again on Friday.