I run a website devoted to the history of Margate FC - [Link] - and am wondering if anybody might be able to help me out with info on a couple of players who were on Palace's books.

1) Alec Dawkins - real long shot as he was apparently just on trial with Palace early in the 1951/52 season. Any info on him would be great and the Holy Grail would be a photo.

His profile on my site is at...

[Link]

2) Les Wiltshire

Know a bit more about him and he was with Palace for a while...

[Link]

...the photo I have is a bit rubbish so if anybody could help me out with a better one I'd really appreciate it. Maybe he'd have been in a youth / reserve team picture at some stage ? Any extra info on him like his date of birth would be great too.

In case anybody's interested my site includes pages on quite a few pretty well-known Palace players like...

Jimmy Belcher, Mel Blyth, Les Devonshire, Les Fell (who I got to know quite well), Mike Flanagan, Albert Robson, Johnny Roche and Bill Roffey.

...and also pages on fringe / reserve players like Steve Dixson, Bill Fuller, Mickey Griffiths, Ron Harland, Vic Pain, Bryan Parry, Bryan Snowdon and Brian Stevens.

Hopefully something of interest there even if nobody can help me out.

Can't help I'm afraid although Les Wiltshire rings a bell.

I'll email via your site which is interesting. Belcher was in my era, great picture of him, you'd never believe he was a Stepney boy! Tom Barnett also I remember well, especially playing alongside Johnny Byrne who used to give him dogs abuse.

lo Selhurst silva felix, lo Selhurst cara nutrix, viget, vigeat, vigebit! Best team:- Jackson; Gilbert, Evans, Cannon, Sansom; Hughes, Kember, McNichol; Byrne, Holton, Wright.

I should have also mentioned Johnny Roche. He suffered from the fact that we did a virtual exchange with Millwall who got Barry Pierce and he had to replace Dave Sexton who had an injury which forced his retirement.

Sexton was a class act whereas Roche was a more of a work horse and Pierce, a superb header of the ball, promptly scored against us in a 1-0 defeat at The Den. Roche's scoring record was not that bad though 13 goals in 40 games unlike the aforementioned fat boy Flanagan who scored the same number in 64 games.

lo Selhurst silva felix, lo Selhurst cara nutrix, viget, vigeat, vigebit! Best team:- Jackson; Gilbert, Evans, Cannon, Sansom; Hughes, Kember, McNichol; Byrne, Holton, Wright.

Glad to have stirred up a few memories.

When Mike Flanagan signed for Margate you'd have thought we'd signed Pele, Cruyff and Maradona all rolled into one judging by the local press coverage.

He scored a cracker of a free-kick on his Margate debut and that was pretty much it although he played another dozen games.

He was signed by Colin Powell just before his spell as Margate's manager came to an end.

Never saw Johnny Roche play but from what I've read I always imagined him to be quite a skilful player, maybe that was more apparent in his non-league days.

I have now found this link [Link] which answers my query about Jeff and I will liaise with the new owner of his old site to pass on my information about Alec Dawkins.

willo !!!!

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