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When Andre Villas-Boas accepted his first managerial job, as boss of the British Virgin Islands, he succeeded another young coach who had also never played professionally, writes Dave Kidd of the Sunday People .

Some 14 years later, the Tottenham chief is managing his third major European club.

The man he replaced, Englishman Gary White, ­remains virtually unheard of in his homeland.

When you’ve spent more than a decade coaching ­football in the paradise islands of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific, you are hardly a ­candidate for sad violin music.

And White, who has led the minnows of Guam to their highest-ever FIFA ranking as the country’s head coach and technical director, is not ­looking for sympathy.

Yet having received the FA elite coaching award, making him one of the 16 best-­qualified coaches on the ­planet, White’s dream of ­managing a significant English club still seems a long way from realisation.

White, 38, said: “To be totally honest, Villas-Boas did not enjoy the same sort of success I did with the British Virgin Islands but the difference for him was that he was then mentored by Jose Mourinho, at Porto and Chelsea, and was then given managerial jobs of his own.

“He’s a talented man who is doing a good job – but if he had been English and not Portuguese, for example, would he have had the same opportunity?

“There have been some great foreign coaches in English football but there have also been some very ­average ones and you wonder how they got those jobs.

“It hurts me that English football is held in such a low regard around the world.

"I am sick to the back of teeth of Dutch and German coaches in this part of the world laughing at us being eliminated by Egypt from the Under-20s World Cup and ­doing so poorly in the Under-21 Championships too.

“English coaches are not given enough respect in our country, especially if you haven’t been a high-profile player.

“I’m certainly not bitter, though, I’m determined to work my backside off to get into a position where I can make changes for the better.”

After playing non-league football for Bognor Regis Town and then in Western Australia, White moved into coaching in his early 20s and set off on a globetrotting odyssey.

He said: “I went in to ­coaching early because I knew it was what I wanted to do and I wanted to get a 10-year head start on those who were playing.

“I faxed every FA in the world and it was the British Virgin Islands who contacted me. We moved up 28 places in the FIFA r­ankings and ­after that I went to the Bahamas, where we rose 55 places.

“Guam is a paradise in the Pacific but their football ­results were like cricket scores. We were 195th in the world, than 18 months later we are up to 176.

“We have done a lot of work on recruiting players of Guamanian heritage, ­including American MLS players, with the help of our FA president Richard Lai, who is a very forward-thinking man.

“We’ve persuaded players to buy into what we want to achieve, to play a more ­positive brand of football that isn’t just about damage limitation.’’

White added: “I feel I am a English natural football ­resource which is in danger of becoming ­extinct.

“I hate how we are seen in international football circles right now and my fellow ­graduates and I from the ­recent FA Elite License ­programme are determined to rewrite this negative ­perception.

“We are modern, creative, young, ­passionate and buoyant.

“I spent 260 hours flying from Guam to Britain to ­complete the course, run by Dick Bate, who is an ­inspirational coach educator.”

But whatever qualifications these bright young things achieve, the lack of a high-profile playing career will ­always hold them back from getting managerial jobs in England – unless clubs change their attitude.

White’s next step could be a job in Japan’s J League – a step in the right direction but still a long way from AVB’s lofty perch at White Hart Lane.