I don’t think he’d qualify as famous - even by Northampton standards. Judging by his wikipedia page he’s a fringe county cricket player - I guess the US equivalent would be a someime AAA baseball player.
Mark Wolstenholme > English People> United States > Superhero > Batman > Batman:_Cataclysm
Next:
now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Auxiliary_Air_Force--->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poke_yoke
Royal Auxiliary Air Force -> Second World War -> Japanese post-war economic miracle -> Lost Decade (Japan) -> Toyota -> Toyota Production System -> Poke yoke (Poka-yoke)
Next: Poka-yoke - Wikipedia to Hokey pokey (ice cream) - Wikipedia
Pokya-Yoke->Manufacturing->Food Processing->Meat Packing Industry->Cattle->Dairy Product->Ice Cream->Ice cream around the world->Hokey Pokey.
Ice cream around the world -> Hydrogenation -> New York City -> Entertainment industry -> Film studios -> Warner Bros -> Merrie Melodies -> Lady, Play Your Mandolin!
Next: Lady, Play Your Mandolin! to Higgs boson.
Lady, Play Your Mandolin! -> Warner Brothers -> Warner Bros. Animation -> Pinky and the Brain -> Internet -> World Wide Web -> CERN -> Higgs boson.
Went to Pinky & the Brain hoping to go via Physics or something, but you take what you can get. I suspect one could cut a few links in the chain between Lady and Internet; also if photo captions are permitted, there’s a direct link from Internet to CERN.
ETA - in fact you can go Lady to IMDB to World Wide Web to CERN to Higgs boson; doubt there’s much shorter.
Next - Higgs boson to Athanasius I, Bishop of Naples.
Trying to avoid going back to CERN and thence to Italy:
Higgs Boson > Babel > Tower of Babel > Giovanni Villani> Santissima Annunziata>Naples> Duchy of Naples > Athanasius of Naples > Athanasius I, Bishop of Naples
Which almost certainly isn’t optimal and includes a link through a disambiguation statement - which I’m not sure counts as an in-text link.
Higgs Boson
Large Hadron Collider
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Italy
Naples
Dukes of Naples
Sergius I of Naples
Athanasius I (Bishop of Naples)
Athanasius I (Bishop of Naples) to Basketball Basketball - Wikipedia
ETA: d’oh! got Ninjaed!
Basketball’s big in Italy:
Athanasius I (Bishop of Naples)>Rome>Pallacanestro Virtus Roma>Basketball
Basketball > Maple > Fungus > Agaricomycotina > Jelly Fungus > Tremalles > Tremella
How about Tremella > Flagstaff (Amtrak Station)
Tremella> Carl Linneaus > Pehr Kalm> New Jersey > Amtrak > Southwest Chief > Flagstaff, Arizona > Flagstaff (Amtrak Station)
Flagstaff (Amtrak station) > Atlantic and Pacific Railroad > United States > Personal computer > Computer-aided design > Computer-aided engineering > Category:Computer-aided engineering > G-code
Ok, just noticed now that the links have to be from the body of the text so here goes:
Flagstaff (Amtrak station) > Atlantic and Pacific Railroad > United States > Personal computer > Computer-aided design > Computer-aided manufacturing > G-code
Too good a game to let die - picking up where it left off:
G-code > Massachusetts Institute of Technology > Physical sciences > Nuclear chemistry > Chemical reaction > Reaction rate > Rate equation > Petersen matrix
Others could do it more briefly and directly, I’m sure, but I’m no scientist.
Next up:
Petersen matrix - Wikipedia > Netherlands national football team results (2000–2009) - Wikipedia
The latter is the first Wiki Random Article that came up.
Petersen Matrix -> Decomposition -> Knoxville, TN -> National Premier Soccer League -> Association Football -> List of Association Football Clubs -> List of Men’s National Association Football Teams -> Netherlands National Football Team -> Category: Netherlands National Football Team -> Category: Netherlands National Football Team Results -> NETHERLANDS NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM 2001
That was brutal. Getting to the specific team record made it a lot more difficult.
Let’s do:
NETHERLANDS NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM 2001 -> Amsterdam -> Americas-> United States -> Culture of United States -> Video Games ->MMORPGs-> Dungeons & Dragons -> Magic of Dungeons & Dragons -> Magic Items (Dungeons & Dragons) -> Bag of Holding.
Thanks for resurrecting this game! It’s so much fun 
Doh. I posted an answer, then thought I did it backwards. And then realized I didn’t. So redoing it’ll be my next post.
Here we go:
Bag_of_holding-> Discworld->Death_(Discworld) -> Skeleton-> Organism-> Digestive_system-> Food-> Obesity-> Eating_disorder-> Polyphagia
That was a bit easier:
Polyphagia > Tarrare > Paris > France > French people > French American > Éleuthère Irénée du Pont > DuPont > Freon
Next up:
Freon - Wikipedia > Hemimyzon sheni - Wikipedia
Again, the Random Article which Wiki gave me.