Alec Wilson, originally from Exmouth, provided much of the statistical input for ‘Exeter City: A Complete Record 1904-1990’ published by Breedon Books in 1990. He died when the book was being compiled.

With Breedon Books publishing ‘complete record’ books about various football clubs from 1985 onwards it was Alec Wilson who took up the idea of adding an Exeter City volume to the series. Although he was living in Leicester, he had followed the Grecians since the 1920s. By now in his mid-seventies he had made considerable progress with the manuscript, and had delivered several sections of the book, before dying in hospital in August 1989.   

The book was then completed - and published soon after City’s 1990 championship success - by Maurice Golesworthy, well-known for his work on sports history in general, and Garth Dykes who had already compiled two other books for the series.

Alec was born in Exmouth in November 1915, the son of a music teacher who had been a military bandmaster. Educated at Exmouth Grammar School - as was Mike Blackstone, another Exeter City historian - he left school in 1931 by which time, in addition to being a keen footballer and cricketer, he had already started to collect sporting statistics whilst starting work in a legal office. Later a clerk with Devon County Council, he served in the army during the Second World War before moving to Northamptonshire and then Leicestershire making a career in industry as an accounts manager. 

Although he never returned to live in Devon, Alec retained his interest in Exeter City and routinely kept records of the club’s games and its' history together with details of many other clubs. This culminated in compiling a hand-typed ‘The Complete Statistical History of The Football League from Inception until 1989’, a project that was undertaken in the years immediately before his death and was carried out alongside the Exeter City-specific work that made up the core of the 1990 Complete Record book on the club.