Vic Buckingham

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Victor Frederick Buckingham (born October 23, 1915 in Greenwich - died January 26, 1995) was an English association footballer whose approach, as a manager, was a precursor of the Total Football philosophy.

Known as Vic Buckingham, he joined Tottenham Hotspur F.C. in 1935 and played 230 games as a defensive midfielder before leaving in 1949. He started his managerial career with amateur teams Pegasus F.C. and Bradford Park Avenue before attracting the attention of the senior clubs. Buckingham was West Bromwich Albion's longest serving post-war manager, almost leading them to an elusive 'double' in 1954 when they won the FA Cup and finished second in the league. During his management of Ajax, he spotted the young Johan Cruijff who was to go on to develop Buckingham's ideas into the mature concept of Total Football. Buckingham's ideas were radically ahead of his time - engendering total football philosophies and youth systems - and earned him a continental reputation (especially in Spain where he was appointed coach of Sevilla FC and then FC Barcelona) that more often than not, overshadowed his talent back home. The article states that this lack of accreditation back home may have been in part due to a huge blip on his domestic career after innuendoes were cast upon his association with match fixing in the British betting scandal of 1964, revaled shortly after his management reign at Sheffield Wednesday (an anomaly and far greater socially subversive issue in the 1960s). Proof that Buckingham never received the reputation he might have deserved is evident in many areas, including the fact that although he was one of the first English managers to coach top European sides like Ajax Amsterdam and FC Barcelona, and has Cruyff as one of his biggest fans, he remained largely unremembered in his native England, while many in the Netherlands and Spain mourned deeply after news of his death in 1995.

The allegations began shortly after he stepped down as manager of Sheffield Wednesday, and though were never proven against him, tainted his career as three of the players there – Peter Swan, Tony Kay and David Layne – were accused of taking bribes to fix a match with Ipswich Town on December 1, 1962, and betting on their team to lose [1].

[edit] Managerial career

He died in Chichester, England.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Jesse Carver		 West Bromwich Albion F.C. manager
1953-1959		 Succeeded by
Gordon Clark
Preceded by
Bedford Jezzard		 Fulham F.C. Manager
1965-1968		 Succeeded by
Bobby Robson
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