Welsh marches

He'd cost £29,500 when Sunderland signed him in 1950, a club record which stood for 20 years, scoring 70 goals in 117 Roker appearances despite differences with Len Shackleton.

The Sunderland players' biography All The Lads carefully calls it "a clash of styles"; veteran journalist Brian Glanville claims that they simply never got on.

"Shackleton would sometimes put a bias on the ball so that when it reached Ford, it would spin away from him."

Though physically robust, Ford was never so much as cautioned, a record which stood him fairly when former Birmingham and England goalkeeper Gil Merrick claimed in his autobiography that Ford maltreated goalkeepers.

The Welshman won an apology, damages and the withdrawal of the book.

His 23 goals in 38 international appearances were a Welsh record - shared with Ivor Allchurch - until overtaken by Ian Rush.

"Trevor was the first to shake my hand; it was the mark of the man," said Rush.

Welsh internationals like Mel Charles, Mel Nurse and Alan Curtis crowded Blackpill chapel near Swansea. "A lovely man who led by example," said Terry Medwin, formerly of Swansea and Spurs.

There, too, was 78-year-old Stan Stennett - comedian, musician, former Crossroads star and Ford's long time partner in a garage business. Stennett also appeared in Coronation Street as Hilda Ogden's fish shop owning younger brother.

Had we not wayzgoosed to Wales, such things might never have been known.

Had we not wayzgoosed to Wales, we would undoubtedly have joined the festivities at Chester-le-Street - in the light of which Stan Kelley from Norton-on-Tees sends an extract from Cricket Quotations, published in 1994.

"Cricket? It civilises people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket in Zimbabwe.

"I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen."

The speaker, of course, was Mr Robert Mugabwe.

Swansea, the sea front cricket ground where in 1968 Gary Sobers hit six sixes from Malcolm Nash's over, was simultaneously hosting Glamorgan's match against Derbyshire. It could among the last.

The St Helens ground is also where the young Matthew Maynard reached 100 on his debut with three successive sixes off Yorkshire's Phil Carrick and where in 1951 Glamorgan's Jim McConnon claimed a match winning hat-trick against South Africa. McConnon, one of two Burnopfield lads to play cricket for England - and no prizes for the other - died earlier this year, aged 80.

Now, however, the ground faces its swansong. It's becoming run down, the rugby club is moving out, fixtures are only guaranteed until 2005.

After that, it's feared, it'll be yet another out-ground to be dismissed from the county cricket scene.

Good news for Sunderland fans: the 15 successive defeats at the end of last season weren't an all time record in senior football.

In 1898-99, notes the Sunday Times, Darwen - who played in black and white stripes - lost 18 Football League matches on the trot, conceding 141 goals in that 34 game season and scoring just 22.

Worrying news for Sunderland fans: Darwen went out of the league at the end of the season. Last month they finished eighth in the North West Counties League second division.

More holiday reading: a little belatedly, the Church Times reports that on the day of Bolton's end of season match with Middlesbrough - "probably the most urgent game in the club's history" - a special multi-media service was held in St Peter's church, Bolton.

Its theme was "What Jesus would have said to Sam Allardyce." Mr Allardyce, it will be recalled, is the Trotters' manager.

Roger Oldfield, vicar and Wanderers season-ticket holder, told a packed church that Jesus would have understood the pain which the manager felt watching from the sidelines when things were going wrong, and when the players wouldn't listen to him.

Whatever else he might have said to Sam Allardyce seems to have been effective: Boro lost 2-1.

The holiday was topped and tailed by the annual dinner and annual meeting of the Albany Northern League, occasions eight days apart dominated by the extraordinary generosity of Albany Group chairman Brooks Mileson.

Brooks, as readers may now know, announced at the dinner that Albany would continue handsomely to sponsor the league not only throughout his own lifetime but his children's lifetimes, too.

"When I got home I started working out what I'd let myself in for. When I got to £3m I thought 'Oh dear'," he says.

An expensive time for the Sunderland-born former four-minute miler, he has also become the major shareholder in Gretna - twice Northern League champions in the 1990s but now starting a second season in the Scottish third division.

His initial moves are to make the players full-time and to install Keith Agar, with him during a short spell at Scarborough, as managing director.

"I want us to be in the Scottish first division. There's no reason at all why it can't happen quite quickly," he says.

His three children, meanwhile, are planning to present one of those giant cheques to the newly-enriched Northern League. After "Pay" it'll say Albany Northern League, of course. After "The sum of" it'll say "Our inheritance."

No holiday for John Dawson, king of the groundhoppers, who rings with an invitation to attend the Glasgow Evening Times cup final this Saturday.

The following week he's off to Bangor's Inter-Toto Cup match, played at Rhyl, and the Saturday after that to watch Armagh in Inter-Toto action against some side from Belarus.

(John had initially supposed the opposition to be from Belize, which is a bit over-ambitious, even for EUFA.)

"The problem is whether they count as the first games of next season or the last games of this one," adds the Hartlepool postman.

Either way, he'll finish this season on around 170 matches. Since it was cruelly interrupted by a heart by-pass operation, we may assume that he's feeling well again.

And finally...

The column on May 30 sought the identity of the only person to have played in cup finals at both Lord's and Wembley.

The answer we were afforded was Graham Cross - as a footballer for Leicester City and a cricketer for Leicestershire, but perhaps the question should have said "FA Cup final".

Steve Smith points out that Jim Cumbes also qualifies - and should know, after enjoying a beer with him after Jeff Astle's funeral last year.

Cumbes, says Steve, opened the bowling for Worcestershire in the 1973 Benson and Hedges Cup final - 11-1-37-1 - and kept a clean sheet at Wembley two years later when Aston Villa beat Norwich City 1-0 in the League Cup final. Ray Graydon scored the only goal.

He's now chief executive of Lancashire Cricket Club - "and a pleasure to talk to," says Steve.

Back today to Wales, and to Trevor Ford. While his Football League career embraced Swansea, Aston Villa, Sunderland, Cardiff and Newport County for which very well known European club did he also turn out.

The answer, England expects, on Friday.

Published: 10/06/2003