Victor Rounder

Victor Rounder (born 7th February 1943, Koningstad) is a Brunanter former footballer and coach. Rounder both played for and coached the Brunant national football team, and played mainly as a forward.

Playing career
Rounder began his footballing career in mid-1961 with the youth team of FC Kings, and was promoted to their main squad in 1962. Initially appearing mainly as a substitute, he gradually developed as a player and became a starting-eleven striker by 1965. Not long after, he also became one of the most proficiently-scoring forwards in the First League. Apart from his goalscoring skills, he was also noted for his leadership, and was appointed the club’s captain in 1968, a role he would hold for the next five years.

Though FC Kings (at the time still a “young” club, having been founded in 1953) were unable to win the First League while Rounder was at the club, they did finish as runners-up in the 1969-1970 season and often finished in the top five, and Rounder was often praised for his captaincy. In subsequent decades, Rounder also became regarded as perhaps FC Kings’ first great player.

Thanks to his good performances, Rounder was called up to the Brunant national football team in 1967, and soon became a regular player there. He was also made the national team’s captain in 1971, and in this role he led Brunant to a third-placed finish at WFC 1972.

However, Rounder’s career playing football came to a sudden and unfortunate end in April 1973 due to a road accident. A match between FC Kings and St. Marks Koningstad triggered stadium riots which spilled onto the street, the first time such violence had been observed in a Koningstad Derby match. Rioters pelted the FC Kings bus with stones and distracted the driver, causing him to drive onto the highway in the wrong direction. The bus collided with an oncoming truck; physical therapist Marcel Jansen was killed in the crash, and several FC Kings players were injured, including most severely Rounder. He suffered a spinal cord injury which left him a paraplegic, ending his footballing career at the age of 30.

Managing career
Rounder’s involvement with football did not come to an end, however, as the national team’s coach Manuel Verberg left the role for unrelated reasons that summer. With the tragic circumstances that forced him out of football, as well as the fact he was noted for his leadership and strategical skills, the Royal Brunanter Football Association offered him Verberg’s job; thus, in 1973, Rounder became the youngest manager of the Brunant national football team in its history, aged just 30 at the start of his tenure.

Under Rounder, the national football team performed well if not exceptionally so; most notably, at w:c:wnfa:WFC 1976 the team defeated the world-class Italy in the quarterfinals thanks to a Willem Bergher goal, though they lost the final to Belgium. Ultimately, Rounder left the job in 1978 after managing the national team for five years.

Rounder then became the manager of Arabian FC. Despite decent results, he left the job in 1979 after just one year due to a quarrel with the club administration. He then managed his former club FC Kings for three years before being fired in 1982 due to poor results. Subsequently, he managed FC Wikistad in Libertas from 1982 to 1987 and FC Tironian in the Southern Arc Islands from 1988 to 1991, achieving decent results but no significant success with both clubs. He became the coach of FC Civitesse in Libertas in mid-1992, winning the 1992-93 Eerste Divisie. However, he was fired in late 1993 after another quarrel with club administration.

He then managed FC Pieter II back in Brunant from 1994 to 1998, Pinehaven Rangers in the Southern Arc Islands from 1999 to 2003 and Brezonde 1920 F.C. in Brunant from 2004 to 2008. In 2008, Rounder retired from coaching aged 65.

Since his retirement, Rounder has appeared as a public supporter and sometimes commentator for FC Kings and occasionally Arabian FC.