Vic Buckingham

Buckingham joined Tottenham Hotspur in 1934 and played the first season (1934–35) for Tottenham Hotspur nursery club Northfleet United. After that single season he returned to Tottenham, then playing in the Second Division, where he accumulated 230 matches as a defensive midfielder and later defender before leaving in 1949. He started his managerial career at Oxford University 1949–50. After this, he headed the joint amateur team of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Pegasus, with which he won in 1951 the FA Amateur Cup, defeating Bishop Auckland in the final 2–1 in front of a crowd of 100,000 at Wembley Stadium, playing an "attractive push-and-run style of football where they worked hard for one another, kept it simple and passed the ball quickly". Between 1951 and 1953, he managed Bradford Park Avenue, then playing in the Third Division North of the Football, reaching upper midtable places. In 1953, he was hired at West Bromwich Albion as successor to Jesse Carver, who returned to Italy. He became the club's longest-serving post-war manager, almost leading them to the "double" in 1954 when they won the FA Cup, defeating Preston North End 3–2, and finished second in the league. In 1959, he became manager of Ajax, succeeding the Austrian Karl Humenberger in the dugout. There he won the 1959–60 Eredivisie. For personal reasons he left the club at the end of May 1960, a couple of weeks before the end of the 1960–61 season. With the only 28-year-old Keith Spurgeon, who was…

Buckingham was born in Greenwich, the son of Annie Elizabeth Jenkins and William George Buckingham. He was married to Lilian Emma King and had three children. He died aged 79 in Chichester, England.

West Bromwich Albion

Football League First Division runner-up: 1953–54 FA Cup: 1954 FA Charity Shield: 1954 (shared with Wolverhampton Wanderers) Ajax

Eredivisie: 1959–60; runner-up 1960–61 Barcelona

Copa del Generalísimo: 1970–71 Primera División runner-up: 1970–71