Victor Lewis "Vic" Halom (born 3 October 1948 in

Burton upon Trent Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a market town in the borough of East Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire, England, close to the border with Derbyshire. In 2011, it had a population of 72,299. The ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands C ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

) is a former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugb ...

Biography

Playing career

Halom featured as a player most prominently for

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

and

Oldham Athletic Oldham Athletic Association Football Club is a professional football club in Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. The history of Oldham Athletic be ...

. He played as centre forward in the Sunderland team that won the FA Cup in 1973. Having only joined the club 3 months earlier, he scored important goals in the fifth round replay against

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and the semi-final against

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostl ...

Coaching career

Halom moved into management in the early 1980s managing Bergsøy IL in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

. He later achieved great success with Barrow taking them back into the Vauxhall Conference in 1983–84. This led to him being appointed

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Bor ...

manager at the end of the season. Halom began with a mass clear out, many of the incomers being ex-Oldham players. The side struggled to gel at first but things markedly improved when the under-performing record signing Les Lawrence was sold and replaced by proven goalscorer Steve Taylor late in 1984. For the next ''calendar'' year Rochdale showed promotion-winning form and earned a third round

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

tie with

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

. Immediately after that the team went into steep decline not helped by the disastrous signing of

David Mossman David John Mossman (born 27 July 1964) is an English former footballer who made 51 appearances in the Football League playing for Bradford City, Stockport County (in two spells) and Rochdale. He played as a winger. He began his career with home ...

who moved on at a loss after less than ten games At the end of the season despite Rochdale having escaped re-election by one point Halom was retained but told by chairman

Tommy Cannon Thomas Derbyshire (born 27 June 1938), known professionally as Tommy Cannon, is an English comic, actor and singer. He is best known as the straight man of the comic double act Cannon and Ball, until Bobby Ball's death in 2020, in TV programm ...

to try to sell those players under expensive contracts. This seriously weakened the side and after Taylor was sold in October 1986 the club had sunk to bottom of the League by December. Halom was sacked and after being disillusioned with the politics in football never managed a League club again. In 1992, he stood as a

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

candidate for

Sunderland North Sunderland North was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1950 to 2010. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. History Sun ...

in the 1992 General Election but finished third.

References

External links

Vic Halom
at SoccerBase Database

a
Post War English & Scottish Football League A – Z Player's Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Halom, Vic 1943 births Living people Sportspeople from Burton upon Trent Sunderland A.F.C. players Oldham Athletic A.F.C. players Barrow A.F.C. managers Rochdale A.F.C. managers Burton Albion F.C. managers Newcastle United F.C. non-playing staff Association football forwards English football managers English footballers FA Cup Final players