Buckingham moved into coaching and he took Pegasus, the Oxbridge club to an FA Amateur Cup victory in 1951. With his coaching talents highly regarded he was appointed manager of Bradford in the 1951 close season and in his first year in charge, they finished eight in the Third Division North. He moved to West Bromwich Albion in February 1952 and in the following season 1953-54, Albion not only won the FA Cup but were also runners-up in the First Division.
Although he failed to maintain the momentum at West Bromwich, his reputation had been established and in 1979 he moved to Amsterdam to manage Ajax. In his two years with the club they won both the Dutch League and their National Cup. His greatest contribution to both the club and to football was in the credit he received for ‘ discovering’ one of the all-time greats - Johann Cruyff.
Buckingham seemed to have all the required credentials to carry on where Catterick left off. In his first season 1961-62 in charge, Wednesday finished sixth in the league and reached the quarter-finals of the Fair’ s Cup. In his three seasons at Hillsborough, the club were never out of the top six. However, such were the aspirations of the club after Catterick’ s success that his record was deemed to be a failure. On April 9th 1964, he was told his contract would not be renewed and he left the club. Three days later news of the bribes scandal was exposed by The People.
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