Ralph Arthur Buckingham (15 January 1907 – 10 April 1988) was a

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

centre and five-eighths who played 325 games for

Leicester Tigers Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club) are a professional rugby union club based in Leicester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1880 and since 1892 plays its hom ...

between 1924 and 1935 and once for England in 1927. Buckingham made his

debut as a 17 year old on 10 September 1924 against Rugby BTH, a works team from

British Thomson-Houston British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England, and founded as a subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE) of Schenectady, New York, United States. They were kno ...

in Rugby, he then had to wait until 29 October to play his next game against Moseley where he scored the two tries. Buckingham became a regular in the side playing all of the remaining games of the season from December onward. A versatile back he played wing, centre and five-eights, before settling into the team at fly-half where he played the final 9 games of the 1924–25 season and the whole of the 1925–26 season where he was top try scorer with 14 in 36 games. With the arrival of future Scottish international fly half

Harry Greenlees Henry Dickson Greenlees known as Harry Greenlees (31 July 1903 – 23 May 1969) was a rugby union fly-half who played 153 games for Leicester Tigers and 6 games for Scotland between 1926 and 1932. The Greenlees family was in the footwear trade ...

Buckingham moved to five-eights for the next season and then to centre as Leicester moved to the now-standard rugby formation. A traveling reserve on 10 occasions Buckingham played his only international for on 2 April 1927 in a 3-0 defeat against at

Colombes Colombes () is a commune in the northwestern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2019, Colombes was the 53rd largest city in France. Name The name Colombes comes from Latin ''columna'' (Old French ''colombe'') ...

. Buckingham played for Leicestershire and East Midlands in 1931, and created one of Charles Slow's tries with a dribble and pick up, when they were the only side to beat the touring Sprinboks in their 26 match tour. He was

top-try scorer again in 1930–31 season with 15 and again in 1932–33 with 16. He was captain of the club in the 1933–34 season and during his final year he became first choice goal-kicker top-scoring the season with 101 points in 37 games. In total he scored 117 tries for Leicester, at the time of his retirement he was the club's fourth highest try scorer of all time and currently sits tenth on the list of all-time top try scorers.

Sources

Farmer,Stuart & Hands, David ''Tigers-Official History of Leicester Football Club'' (The Rugby DevelopmentFoundation )

References

1907 births 1988 deaths England international rugby union players English rugby union players Leicester Tigers players Rugby union centres Rugby union players from Blaby {{England-rugbyunion-bio-stub