{"title":"Chris Vest","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eChris Vest has had football woven into his life from the beginning. The son of footballer and coach Alan Vest, he grew up moving with his father's career, attending eight schools across England, New Zealand and Australia before the family settled in Australia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eIn the Vest household, football shaped where they lived, the people they met and the experiences they shared.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eA Business graduate, Chris has kept his own lifelong connection with the game - playing, coaching junior teams and following the sport closely. He lives in Perth with his wife Antonia and now watches their son Christian's football journey unfold, continuing a family bond with the game across three generations.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHis father, Alan, was a former New Zealand international and coach whose career ran from England to New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia, where he became a defining figure in Sarawak football. Alan began writing his memoir not for self-promotion but to document the remarkable journey football had taken him on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHe died before it was finished, and Chris completed the story from his father's writings, memories and experiences.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"from-barnsley-to-borneo-the-alan-vest-story","title":"From Barnsley to Borneo: the Alan Vest Story","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eFrom a small Yorkshire village six miles outside Barnsley to the football grounds of Kuching, Alan Vest lived one of the most improbable journeys the game has produced.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eA prolific non-league goalscorer who swapped the round ball for the oval one at a rugby-mad grammar school, Vest built a coaching life across three continents. He captained New Zealand, became Western Australia's first Director of Coaching, took charge of Newcastle KB United in the National Soccer League, and came within a whisker of the Socceroos job, a fixture of Australian football through its formative decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eBut it was on the island of Borneo that he wrote his most extraordinary chapter. Handed a relegated, unfancied Sarawak side, Vest turned them into champions of Malaysia and won the lasting reverence of a state that still remembers him as the \"White Rajah\" of its football. It is a bond so deep he asked for his ashes to be scattered along the Kuching waterfront where he took his morning walks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eBegun by Alan himself and completed by his son Chris from a lifetime of papers, match reports and the memories of those who played for him, \u003cem\u003eFrom Barnsley to Borneo\u003c\/em\u003e is a story of ambition, discipline and adventure, and of a love for the game that carried one man far further than he ever imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chris Vest","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45426859311286,"sku":null,"price":34.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0592\/8688\/0438\/files\/FromBarnsleytoBorneov3.jpg?v=1788918838"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0592\/8688\/0438\/collections\/Chris_Vest_Photo.png?v=1788928195","url":"https:\/\/www.fairplaypublishing.com.au\/collections\/chris-vest.oembed","provider":"Fair Play Publishing","version":"1.0","type":"link"}