No spelling mistakes?! What do you mean by that? How dare you come on here and patronise us over 50s - what an ego, yes that's what I wrote, what an ego ... you used the first person singular 5 times in your post but you're probably the type that's too lazy to count or worse you refer to yourself in the third person, it'll be Nick the Eagle went to a match over yen years ago and that makes me a veteran, well let me tell you sunshine etc ... anyway, Mark Lindsay is the first black player I remember, no mention of Henry Houghton any more after he sheared Gerry Ryan's leg in two ... on a more serious note during the Coppell era we were perhaps the only side in the country to have more black than white players in our first XI, and this won us quite a few black supporters ... things have changed with the playing side but there is still some way to go as far as managers are concerned AND FANS - I think a lot of people who aren't ethnically Caucasian still find the atmosphere more than a tad too tribal at many grounds, but though Selhurst is pretty raucous these days it isn't intimidating in an unhealthy way. I don't want to get inappropriately serious but I wonder if our crowds are as representative of South London as the team usually is.

lovely man terrific player

I started this thread four years ago and thought I'd share a recent 'conversation' with Tony Collins our first black player. Tony is in good health at 94 and was happy to answer questions that I put to him through his daughter, Sarita.

I asked him what he remembered about playing alongside Johnny Byrne. His daughter responded:

"Fitness was a key element of strategy at Crystal Palace and the squad were often sent off on some long cross country runs. This generated a certain level of banter amongst the participants with the younger lads often making some rude remarks about the stamina of the older players. Tony would regularly team up with one of them and the pair would ‘take on’ the younger lads, particularly the very talented 17 year old Jonny Byrne, by getting out in front, slowing down for a taunting catch-up and then speeding up again. Johnny would often remark about Tony’s physical stamina with quips such as “You’re not human mate!”

The past four years have been spent researching a book "Football's Black Pioneers", just published. Tony appears as the first black player at Watford and Norwich as well as Palace. He also became the first black manager in the Football League when he took over at Rochdale in 1960. There is more about Tony at [Link] if you are interested.

A couple of people on here were very helpful in identifying Tony as our first black player - thank you.

I saw Tony play many times, and I have a memory that his nickname was "Chopper". Is that a figment of my imagination? (No, I'm not mixing him up with Bert Howe.)

Only just spotted this. Wonderful stuff. Thanks for bringing us this update. Made me smile.