Franklin Charles Buckley

Frank Buckley
Frank Buckley

Franklin Charles Buckley (more commonly known as Major Frank Buckley) (3 October 1882 – 21 December 1964) was an English football player and, later, manager. He was the brother of Chris Buckley, who played for Aston Villa.

Early life

Buckley was born in Urmston, Lancashire. He attended St Francis Xavier’s College, Liverpool, and became an office clerk. Already part of the Manchester Regiment, Buckley signed up for a 12-year enlistment in King’s Regiment (Liverpool) and expected to serve in the Boer War, but was instead sent to Ireland. He bought himself out of the army in 1902 to become a professional footballer.

Playing career

He went from Aston Villa to Brighton and Hove Albion to Manchester United and Manchester City all within six years, and found something approaching stability only with Birmingham, where he made 56 appearances. Soon after that he was on the move again, this time to Derby County. It was with the Rams, in 1914, that he gained his sole England cap, in a shock 3–0 defeat by Ireland at Ayresome Park, before upping sticks, again, to join Bradford City; his stay in Yorkshire shortened by the start of the First World War.

Managerial career

Major Frank Buckley
Major Frank Buckley

Buckley went to war with the 17th Middlesex Regiment (where he commanded the Football Battalion), seeing action and receiving wounds to his lung and shoulder in the Battle of the Somme, and rose to the rank of Major. On his return, he was appointed manager of Norwich City. The Canaries had been so debt-ridden that the receivers had wound the club up, but following an extraordinary general meeting, the club was resurrected; Buckley was placed in charge in February 1919, and returned the club to Southern League football. Despite having retired from playing during the war, he played one game for Norwich in September 1919, when he was the club’s secretary-manager.

Once again, his stay was short; by July 1920 he was gone, financial disputes precipitating a wholesale change of personnel.

Blackpool

He returned to football management with Blackpool on 6 October 1923; there, his ideas began to come to the fore. He was lured to Bloomfield Road with the promise of an extremely high salary and enough money to strengthen the squad. Buckley is credited with implementing a youth system and scouting scheme to ‘the Seasiders’.

Despite a total change of tactics, he did not have much more success with Blackpool than did his predecessor, Bill Norman. During the 1924–25 season Buckley sold established players such as Herbert Jones and Harry Bedford, which proved unpopular amongst the fans.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

In July 1927, he took up an appointment with Wolverhampton Wanderers. Stan Cullis wrote of him: “I soon realised that Major Buckley was one out of the top drawer. He did not suffer fools gladly. His style of management in football was very similar to his attitude in the army. Major Buckley implanted into my mind the direct method of playing which did away with close interpassing and square-ball play. If you didn’t like his style you’d very soon be on your bicycle to another club. He didn’t like defenders over-elaborating in their defensive positions. Major Buckley also knew how to deal with the press.”

Buckley’s stay at Wolves can be looked at in two ways. On the face of it, he appeared to achieve only modest success with the club; they won the Division Two title in 1931–32 and finished runners-up in the Division One in 1937–38 and in both the First Division and the FA Cup the following season. An alternative view is that during his stay at Molineux, Buckley once made the club a £100,000 profit within one year, purely on transfer deals; he toyed, provocatively, with the media, instigating the empty rumour that his players were using a monkey gland treatment to aid performance; he used psychologists to instill confidence in his players and was responsible for bringing through Stan Cullis and offering Billy Wright a start in professional football. After he had left the club, however, the full value of his vision, not least the Wolves youth programme, came to fruition and did so much to shape the Wolves side of the 1950s, when they won three Division One championships, twice won the FA Cup, and were one of few genuine challengers to the Busby Babes.

Buckley left Wolves in 1944 and another non-committal couple of years followed at Notts County (for a then-unheard-of £4,000 a year) and Hull City before starting work at Leeds United, where one of his first discoveries was John Charles just after Christmas 1948. He was not afraid to try all manner of ideas to induce the Elland Road club out of mediocrity: dancing songs broadcast through the public address system during training days, so-called ‘shooting’ boxes (a contraption designed to send the ball out at different speeds and angles to players), increasing admission costs, banning players from smoking two days before a match and youth development programmes.

Legacy

Buckley’s influence on the rise of the Blackpool and Wolves sides of the 1950s, of the Leeds United ‘club culture’ of the 1960s and 1970s should never be understated. His principles may not have been adopted directly by Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson but they were innovative principles that are now quite commonplace.

A stern disciplinarian throughout his career, Buckley earned devotion and affection, not least because he was also a ‘tracksuit’ manager. He brought in Jack Charlton, who had this to say about him:

“Unlike the pros, we got just two weeks’ holidays in the summer, and while they were away our job was to remove the weeds from the pitch and replace them with grass seed. I remember being sat out there one day with Keith Ripley, another ground staff boy, when Major Buckley came over to us. We must have looked pretty forlorn, the two of us, and to gee us up he said he’d give us five shillings for every bucket we filled with weeds. Now that was an offer we couldn’t refuse. By the time we were finished, we had filled six buckets, and, cheeky bugger that I was, I marched straight up to the Major’s office. And when he asked what I wanted, I told him I was there to claim my thirty bob for the weeds. He nearly blew a bloody gasket! ‘Get out of here!’ he bellowed. ‘You’re already getting paid to do that work – don’t ever let me see you up here again with your buckets.’

“Yet beneath the gruff exterior, he was a kind man, as he demonstrated once when I met him. My shoes must have been a sight, for when he looked down at them, he asked me if they were the only pair I had. I nodded. The next morning, he summoned me to his office and handed me a pair of Irish brogues, the strongest, most beautiful shoes I’d ever seen. And I had them for years.”

Buckley left Leeds in April 1953, moving to Walsall, but left them in September 1955.

He died in Walsall in December 1964, aged 82.

Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson

Joe Wilson was born in High Spen, County Durham, in 1909. Joe played football for Spen Black and White, Winlaton Celtic and Tanfield Lea Institute before signing for Newcastle United, initially on amateur forms, in 1933. He impressed for their Central League team, and turned professional in September 1933. He made his senior debut on Christmas Day 1934 and scored in a 6–2 defeat of Hull City in the Second Division, and played regularly through the second half of that season.

However, he fell out of favour, playing in only 14 matches in 1935–36, many of which were in positions other than his preferred inside right, and was made available for transfer at a fee of £500. He spoke to two Third Division South clubs, Cardiff City and Brighton & Hove Albion, and chose to sign for the latter; the fee paid was £450.

Joe impressed with his pace and his ability on the ball, and was a regular in the side, although not always at inside right. In the three seasons running up to the Second World War, as Albion finished third, fifth and third, Joe missed only nine matches in league and FA Cup. During the war he served as a Physical Training Instructor and when duty permitted, appeared for Albion in the wartime competitions.

He resumed his career with appearances in all ten of Albion’s 1945-46 FA Cup matches and 39 of their 42 fixtures in the first post-war league season. He then retired as a player and was appointed assistant to trainer Alex Wilson. When Alex Wilson left the club in 1952, Joe succeeded him as trainer, a post he held for 18 years. In 1963, he had a brief spell as caretaker manager between George Curtis’s departure and the arrival of Archie Macaulay. After five years as chief scout, he retired in 1974.

Joe played 353 matches for the Seagulls between 1936 and 1947 scoring 49 goals.

Jack Williams

Jack Williams

Jack Williams was born in 1906 in Wolverhampton, and played local football for Wednesfield Rovers before signing for Second Division club Wolverhampton Wanderers in November 1925, initially as an amateur. He made only three league appearances, in the 1927–28 season, and moved on to Gillingham of the Third Division South.

After three months and nine appearances, he moved on again, to Brighton & Hove Albion, where he was very highly rated. He was a regular in the side, and played 48 appearances in all competitions before a serious injury sustained towards the end of the 1929–30 season ended his career at the age of 23. He left the club in 1931 and joined the Brighton police.

Stan Webb

Stan Webb

Stan Webb was born in Portslade-by-Sea in 1906. He worked at the local gasworks, and played football for his works team and for Sussex county League team Hove before turning professional with Brighton & Hove Albion in 1924. He spent the next season with Tunbridge Wells Rangers of the Kent League, and made 24 first-team appearances for Albion in 1925–26. He then lost his place to the experienced Skilly Williams but regained it in late 1928, and was undisputed first choice goalkeeper until the arrival of Joe Duckworth, with whom he enjoyed a rivalry for the position until Duckworth moved on in 1932. Stan made his 234th and final first-team appearance for Albion in 1934, returned to Tunbridge Wells Rangers in 1935, and finished his career at Southwick.

Peter Trainor

Peter Trainor

Peter Trainor was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland in 1915. He began his football career with Workington of the North Eastern League and joined Preston North End in 1937, but never played for their first team. He moved on to Brighton & Hove Albion a few months later, and soon established himself in the team, but the outbreak of the Second World War and consequent abandonment of competitive football for the duration meant he was into his thirties before the resumption. He played occasionally at centre forward after the war, but then lost his place entirely and went back to Workington at the end of the 1947–48 season.

Peter played 94 matches for the Seagulls between 1938 and 1948 scoring 5 goals.

Charlie Thomson

Charlie Thomson

Charlie Thomson was born in Perth, Perthshire in 1905. He played for St Johnstone YMCA and for Scottish League clubs Alloa Athletic and Falkirk where he spent four seasons, before moving to England to sign for Brighton & Hove Albion in 1934. He was a first-team regular for five years and made 191 appearances for the Seagulls.

Charlie joined Exeter City in 1939, and played in the first three matches of the 1939-40 Football League before competitive football was abandoned for the duration of the Second World War. He then returned to Scotland where he played for Dundee United in the Eastern Regional League and was on the losing side in the Scottish War Emergency Cup, won by Rangers. After the war, he rejoined Exeter City before going back to Scotland.

Bert Stephens

Bert Stephens

Bert Stephens was born in Gillingham, Kent in 1909. An outside forward, Bert began his career at amateur club Ealing Association and joined Third Division South club Brentford in February 1931. He made just six first team appearances for the club and scored one goal, before his departure at the end of the 1934-35 season. Bert spent much of his time with Brentford in the reserve team, with whom he won two London Combination titles and the 1934-35 London Challenge Cup.

Bert joined Brighton & Hove Albion in June 1935. He was Brighton’s top scorer in the 1936-37 season, with 26 goals in all competitions and again in 1938-39 with 17 goals. After competitive football was suspended in 1939 due to the outbreak of the Second World War, Bert remained with the Seagulls. He retired in 1948, after scoring 86 goals in 180 league games and at the time he was Brighton’s second-highest goalscorer. Including his tally in wartime matches, Bert scored 174 goals for the Seagulls between 1935 and 1948 appearing in 366 matches.

Reg Smith

Reg Smith

Reg Smith was born in Rotherham in 1903. He played for Midland League club Scunthorpe & Lindsey United before joining Brighton & Hove Albion in 1923.

Although the team had considerable strength at full back at during the 1920s, Reg averaged 20 league matches a season for the seven seasons he spent in the first team, and was appointed captain for 1929–30. An injury early in that campaign effectively ended his professional career, although he remained on the club’s books until 1931.

Reg then played amateur football for Shoreham.

Harold Sly

Harold Sly

Harold Sly was born in Appley Bridge, Lancashire in 1904. He played football for the Rover Company’s team before joining Birmingham, however, he never started a match for the club in the English Football League and dropped back into the amateur game with Tamworth Castle.

In 1927 he joined Gillingham of the Football League Third Division where he spent two seasons but never secured a regular place in the club’s first team, He then moved to Brighton & Hove Albion where he made 24 appearances between 1929 and 1933 before joining French club FC Sete.