Coaching can be a lonely and unforgiving profession and sometimes getting your first big break, whether through luck, circumstance or connections, is the toughest challenge.

For Chinese Taipei’s English coach, Gary White, that break came through a medium that’s now close to obsolete – the fax machine.

Having decided in his late teens that he didn’t have the quality to make it as a player, White set about starting his coaching qualifications, determined to be the best coach he could be. The only issue, as a 24-year-old armed with his first coaching licence, was how to find that initial break.

As he explains to FIFA, it was an unconventional idea that set him on a path that’s now taken him to the top job at five different national teams as well as clubs in both Japan and China.

“I was in the youth system as a player at Southampton but I got chewed up and pushed out at 17 or 18,” he explained. “After trying my hand in Australia, I decided that if I couldn’t be the best player then I wanted to be the best coach.

“I started early with obtaining my badges. I didn’t want to travel the world trying to make it as a player then have messed up knees at 35 and nothing to show for it – and after I started that process with the licences I hit on an idea.

“This was back in 1997 and somehow I’d gotten hold of a FIFA directory. I went to an old fax shop just opposite Luton Town’s stadium at Kenilworth Road and I faxed off an introduction message to every single one of FIFA’s member associations.

“It was around 201 associations at the time and it was a nightmare. It was pouring with rain, there were loads of other people trying to use the fax machine and it took me five hours to send them all off.

“The fax machine kept cutting out and I’d have to resend them, so somewhere in these nations, they would have received a random half page fax and wondered what was going on.”

In the end just three associations responded – by mail – with one of those following up with a phone call and then an offer. That was the British Virgin Islands – a tiny speck in the Caribbean with a population of barely 25,000 at the time – and after a flight into an area known as Beef Island, White was driven straight from the airport to run a session with the senior team.

“There I was, younger than any of the players I was coaching, with a B licence but very little experience, but what I did have was confidence and drive and that was where it all started.”

After barely a year in charge, becoming one of the youngest ever national coaches at just 24, the Bahamas came calling. White would spend the next eight years as both coach and technical director, overseeing a jump up the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking that saw them become one of 2006’s biggest movers they reached their highest ever slot of 138.

A four-year stint in Guam followed, where he led the Matao to their first ever FIFA World Cup™ qualifying win, then his first spell in charge of Chinese Taipei, from 2017 to 2018, where he guided them to their highest ever FIFA ranking.

Club jobs in the J.League with Tokyo Verdy and at Chinese sides Shanghai Shenxin, Nantong and Suzhou were interspersed with a stint in charge of Hong Kong. The now 49-year-old then returned to Chinese Taipei in June 2023 with a target to guide the team back to former glories.

“I’d spent four years in China and a proposal came to help develop the game in Chinese Taipei, and I knew it was something I had to do,” he said.

“There is a really strong football pedigree in Chinese Taipei. They were one of the best teams in Asia in the 1950s and 1960s, and thousands of kids play the game but we lose a lot of them due to a lack of pathways when they hit their teenage years.

“Developing that elite pathway for both coaches and players is the aim, but equally so is having success with the senior team.”

Having breezed through the first round of AFC qualification with a 7-0 aggregate win over Timor-Leste, Chinese Taipei lost their first two second-round matches against Oman and Malaysia. They now face a pivotal month with home and away fixtures against Kyrgyzstan.

Those fixtures could either end Chinese Taipei’s hopes or fire them right into the mix for a third-round berth – and White knows just what is at stake.

“Even though we lost our first two matches we fought well and realised that we’re not that far away. Chinese Taipei has never picked up points at this stage of qualification and our aim now is to make history.

“We’ve brought in a lot of younger players, including four players who are still in high school who are in line to feature against Kyrgyzstan, have others with real experience, as well as tapping into the diaspora. I’m confident we’re moving in the right direction.

“The federation and clubs have helped to back us with a month-long training camp before the qualifiers and, with the right breaks, we’re aiming to make history for Chinese Taipei.”

As one of the few English coaches to have forged a long and successful career outside of his homeland, White is hoping that he can both be an inspiration to younger coaches and perhaps one day return to England to put his vast knowledge of world football to use.

“It’s strange for me why there are so few English coaches looking to move abroad. I think generally English people travel quite well so maybe it’s about being comfortable and a fear of the unknown in football.

“Perhaps there’s a snobbery or a lack of insight about what football looks like outside of England, but I’ve had so much support from coaches at the highest level of the game back home, including Gareth Southgate, and I see it as my role to also help other coaches. Every time I’ve brought a coach in from England to work alongside me, they’ve loved it.

“I have several English staff with me now in Chinese Taipei and we’re all working to create that history here, but when they come to Asia or the Caribbean or wherever else I’ve been, it changes their life and their perspective of football.

“People start to see that football is not just a game based in England or Europe and that there’s so much quality and potential no matter where you are; the challenge now is to help Chinese Taipei reach that potential. After that, I’m ready for whatever comes next.”