THE televised England victory over South Africa at the Kingsmead cricket ground in Durban last week brought back memories for former 1st XI Toft players Bill Butler, Mike Mulholland, Alan Stimpson and myself, the former club secretary.

We were all members of a Toft touring side that played matches against top South African club teams in 1980, including the Kingsmead Mynahs, whose club ground was the Test match venue of Kingsmead itself.

The Toft side was strengthened by Cheshire county players and accompanied by the former Lancashire and England opening batsman and Knutsford resident Geoff Pullar, who sadly died last year.

I accompanied the team as umpire and publicist and umpired the match against the Mynahs. The team was amongst the select group entertained at a dinner given in Durban Town Hall by the Lord Mayor of Durban, which included many famous South African Test match players and strangely enough Dr Christiaan Barnard, the brilliant South African pioneer cardiac surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant in 1967.

John Howard

Knutsford