Vic Buckingham: The ex-Tottenham player’s legacy lives on

Vic Buckingham is perhaps the man who had the most influence in turning football into the beautiful game adored by billions across the globe. 

His revolutionary approach, in part, is responsible for the total football pioneered by Ajax and the mystique of La Masia. He even contributed to Tottenham’s current success.

Buckingham was a maverick; way ahead of his time, his mind cultivated creativity and ball mastery in a vogue of military-esque training regimes.

The panache oozed from Buckingham’s sides, and was further entwined in his off-the-pitch lifestyle. A regular at West End shows, Vic’s teams found themselves warming up with the can-can; or, to help with balance, they’d perform an elegant tap dance routine.

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"In Rory Smith’s book, Mister, he describes Buckingham as ‘not an easy man to ignore. He was the sort to dress to impress: a pocket square emerging ostentatiously from his tweed jacket, a tie of purest silk, a trilby perched raffishly on his head.’"

And yet Vic has largely been ignored by the game to which he gave so much, and by the club he played his entire career for, Tottenham Hostpur.