Frank Buckley ( footballer ) 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 is the brother of Chris Buckley who played for Aston Villa . Early life . Buckley was born in Urmston , Lancashire . He joined the army and bought himself out in 1902 to join a football club . Playing career . He went from Aston Villa to Brighton to Manchester United and Manchester City all within six years and found something approaching stability only with Birmingham City , where he made 56 appearances . Soon after that he was on the move again , this time to Derby County . It was with the Rams that he gained his sole England cap , in 1914 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 World War I . Managerial career . Introduction to management . 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 and Buckley was placed in charge in February 1919 and returned the club to Southern League football . Despite retiring from playing during the war , Buckley played one game for Norwich in September 1919 , when he was the club ' s secretary - manager . Once again Buckley ’ s stay was short . By July 1920 he was gone , financial disputes precipitating a wholesale change of personnel . Influence . As a result 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 Busby , Shankly , Clough and Ferguson but they were innovative principles that are quite commonplace now . Buckley ' s financial acumen may well have come from his stint as a travelling salesman in the early 1920s , but he returned to football management with Blackpool on 6 October 1923 , and it was there that Buckley ’ s ideas started 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 , Buckley did not have much more success with Blackpool than his predecessor , Bill Norman . During the 1924 – 25 season , he sold established players such as Herbert Jones and Harry Bedford , which proved unpopular amongst the fans . As of 2013 , Buckley is the eighth longest serving Blackpool manager in terms of Football League games in charge . Wolverhampton Wanderers . In July 1927 , Buckley 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 . " ( Cullis , quoted in " Taylor and Ward " , 1995 , pp . 31 – 2 ) Buckley ' s stay at Wolves can be taken 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 , youth development programmes . John Charles did excel during the 1954 – 55 season but the team failed to respond in kind . Legacy . Buckley , a stern disciplinarian throughout his career , 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 . Buckley died in Walsall in December 1964 , aged 82 .