Marc White

Marc James Warren White (born 1 October 1973) is an English businessman who is best known for being founder, owner, chairman, former football player and current manager of National League South club Dorking Wanderers.

White founded Dorking Wanderers with friends in 1999 as an amateur team and initially played for them, as well as running the club he went on to become first team manager. White has overseen 12 promotions in 23 years and has seen the club move from the seventeenth-tier of English football to the fifth.

White founded Dorking Wanderers in 1999 along with Mark Lewington, Ian Davidson, Lee Spickett and Penny Gregg. The club were founded in Division 5 of the Crawley & District Football League.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} He helped Dorking Wanderers achieve 12 promotions within 23 seasons from the English seventeenth tier to the English fifth tier.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

White’s dual role as manager and chairman proved crucial during the club’s relocation to the refurbished £8 million Meadowbank Stadium in July 2018. Up until that point, White had spent a decade personally funding updates to their picturesque but restrictive Westhumble ground to meet strict league rules. When the town’s older, historic club, Dorking F.C., folded in 2017, White quickly orchestrated a takeover of their defunct lease and negotiated a long-term deal with the Surrey FA to move the Wanderers into the new central facility. White used the move and the stadium's state-of-the-art synthetic pitch as a primary selling point to attract high-profile semi-professional players, explicitly stating his ambition was to transition the former park side into a Football League club.^[14]

In 2020, Dorking Wanderers became one of the main subjects of the non-league football channel, Bunch of Amateurs.^[15]

In March 2023, in a National League game against York City, White was sent off in the 16th minute of the game after berating the linesmen. At the end of the game, he later confronted the match officials at the car park outside the York Community Stadium which resulted in him getting a worse punishment which then resulted in The FA giving him a lengthy eight-game stadium ban. White later on revealed in podcasts that he was hungover the night before which left him in a bad mood ahead of the game. This is thus far one of his most severe punishments. However, Dorking Wanderers ultimately managed to secure safety in the National League by the third to last game of the season in a 0-0 draw against Gateshead away on April 18, 2023, ensuring their survival in the final weeks of the season despite his absence from the stadium. ^[16]

Despite managing over 1,000 competitive matches, White has never held formal coaching qualifications or FA coaching badges. When addressing regulations requiring standard UEFA certifications for English Football League managers, White publicly rejected the system, questioning the validity of credentials for a manager with his established promotion record.^[17]

Throughout his time in the dugout, White has become famous for his extensive and costly disciplinary record with the Football Association (FA). Because his unfiltered post-match rants and touchline outbursts frequently lead to automatic fines, White has joked in interviews that he has accumulated more suspensions than almost any other modern manager, once noting he had been banned from 12 different stadiums in a single season. Since he completely self-funds the club and answers to no superior board of directors, White has openly stated that the heavy financial penalties from the FA do not change his management style or deter him from speaking his mind. There are notable incidents such as the previously mentioned York City sending off in March 2023. In September 2023, during a National League fixture away against Oldham Athletic, White received a straight red card just 16 minutes into the first half. The dismissal occurred after White kicked a stray ball away on the touchline, which the referee ruled as an intentional action to delay the restart of play.^[18] During the halftime interval of a National League South match against Maidenhead United in March 2026, White was sent off following a verbal exchange with the match officials. White, who later clarified he used no abusive language, was dismissed after openly telling the referee that his performance was not up to standard and suggesting he referee at a lower level.^[19]

White has gained a prominent public profile for his unconventional, unfiltered post-match press conferences. He frequently draws national media attention for bypassing standard public relations conventions, notably delivering a viral, explicit critique of his squad's performance following a heavy 6-0 defeat to Barnet in March 2024.^[20]

White suffered his first relegation in his managerial career as Dorking Wanderers were relegated from the National League at the end of the 2023–24 season.^[21] In June 2025, The FA gave White a six-match touchline ban for a sexist comment about women on a podcast.^[22] In September 2025, White and Dorking Wanderers made the headlines when they opted to sign a 54-year-old fan and supporter of Dorking to play as an emergency goalkeeper ahead of a game against AFC Totton due to their first-choice goalkeeper, Harrison Foulkes injuring his spleen the previous game. ^[23] In December 2025, White agreed to a unique broadcasting stunt by opening the Dorking Wanderers dressing room to the public for a match against Weston-super-Mare. Working with the Bunch of Amateurs film crew, White let his pre-match, halftime, and full-time team talks be broadcast completely live and unfiltered to a global streaming audience. This was the first time a manager had ever allowed their locker-room team talks to be streamed live at the exact same time a match was being played.^[24]

In May 2026, acting in his capacity as majority owner and chairman, White oversaw a major financial restructure at Dorking Wanderers by approving a shareholding sale to a US-based investment consortium. The group was fronted by American entrepreneur James Sixsmith, a former professional ice hockey player turned stock day-trader. White structured the partnership to inject foreign capital into the club to help fund a long-term push toward the Football League, while explicitly retaining his absolute personal control over first-team football operations. As part of the corporate deal negotiated by White, the consortium's UK associate, Daryl Cumberland, was added to the club's senior committee board to act as Sixsmith's day-to-day representative.^[25]

White made his name as a banker in the City of London before starting a successful marketing business. Growing up as a Wimbledon fan, White became frustrated with the destruction of his club and decided to start his own team instead of watching, founding Dorking Wanderers in 1999.^[1]

Before his career in football and property development, White achieved early success in the corporate sector. By his mid-twenties, he became the youngest corporate sales director for a major blue-chip company in the United Kingdom. White has frequently stated that the leadership and corporate management training he received during this period heavily influenced his later approach to running both the sporting and financial operations of Dorking Wanderers.^[26]

As of 2 May 2026