‘Sleeping giants’ Connah’s Quay launch ambitious bid to attract 1,000 fans

Connah’s Quay Nomads are pulling out all the stops to attract a four-figure crowd for their Flintshire derby against Flint Town United next month.

The Nomads have brought in luxury sports travel expert Alex Catton, who will spend the next four weeks using his experience of major sporting events around the world to help transform the match-day experience at the Essity Stadium.

The ambitious target is to get 1,000 supporters through the turnstiles when Flint Town visit on November 6.

Catton, who has more than 15 years’ experience in sports and luxury travel, is the founder of Vedere Travel, a luxury sports and experiences operator established in 2023.

The company specialises in official tickets, premium hospitality and carefully selected hotels, with experiences built around Formula One weekends, football tours and some of the biggest occasions in the sporting calendar.

Now, he is swapping some of those high-profile events for a very different challenge in North Wales.

Connah’s Quay want to transform the match-day experience

In a promotional video shared on the Nomads’ social media channels, as well as his own platforms, Catton explains why he has taken on the project.

The video features images of him attending major sporting events including the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Wimbledon and several Formula 1 Grands Prix.

But for the next month, his attention will be firmly on Connah’s Quay.

“For the next four weeks, I’m giving all of that up for this,” Catton says in the video.

He then explains how he hopes to put his experience of taking clients around the world to major sporting events to work at the Nomads.

“Can I use my experience of sending clients all around the world to sporting events to see how I can enhance the match-day experience here in North Wales at the club with the lowest average attendance in the entire league and get people through those turnstiles?”

Catton has Connah’s Quay connections stretching back decades

Catton has been affiliated with the Nomads for virtually his entire life, having played for the club at youth level.

The club has remained part of his family ever since, although work and travel commitments have meant he has not been able to attend as regularly in recent years, particularly since the Nomads moved to Flint.

He has returned to a number of home games this season and says his experience as a supporter prompted him to ask what could be done to make matchday more of an occasion.

“I’ve been back to a number of home games this season and, taking absolutely nothing away from the fantastic work the volunteers have done for so many years, I just felt there was something missing,” he said.

“The atmosphere can feel flat and, at the moment, there isn’t enough of a draw beyond the football itself to make people think: ‘That’s where we’re going on a Friday night.’

“And that’s the part that doesn’t add up to me.

“Flint is actually an incredible, intimate little ground, only a couple of miles from the Nomads’ original home.

“You’ve got one of the most successful Cymru Premier clubs of recent years, currently sitting second in the league, playing exciting football under a top manager in John Disney, yet we’re not attracting anything like the crowds the club should be capable of attracting.”

What can Welsh football learn from American sport?

Catton spends a significant amount of time in the United States and says he has seen first-hand how sporting events can become about much more than what happens on the pitch.

He points to friends who hold season tickets for Friday-night minor-league baseball and who attend as much for the food, entertainment and social experience as they do for the baseball itself.

It may sound unfamiliar to some traditional football supporters, but Catton believes there are lessons that can be adapted for North Wales without simply trying to copy the American model.

“What I’ve seen through working in sport and travelling around the world is that the sport itself is increasingly only one part of the experience,” he said.

“Of course the football matters, but what makes people return week after week is everything around it: good food, music, entertainment, things for children to do, somewhere safe and welcoming to meet friends and a genuine sense of community.”

He also believes current cost-of-living pressures make affordable matchdays more important than ever.

“Times are incredibly difficult for families at the moment,” he said.

“Pubs are closing, restaurants are expensive, and there are fewer and fewer affordable evening activities.

“Even something as simple as taking a family of four to the cinema, getting some food and making an evening of it can become a significant expense.

“I want the Nomads and hopefully Flint too to become that affordable Friday-night outing.

“I want kids asking their parents during the week, ‘Are we going to the football on Friday?’

“You should be able to come down, get a really good meal at a sensible price, have some entertainment, meet friends, watch a good standard of football and feel like you’ve had a proper night out without spending hundreds of pounds.”

Nomads have the lowest average attendance in the league

Connah’s Quay currently have the lowest average home attendance in the Cymru Premier, with 298 supporters per match.

That is 30 fewer than nearest rivals Airbus UK Broughton, while the gap to the other end of the attendance table is considerably bigger.

Colwyn Bay are currently averaging 1,221 spectators, meaning 932 more fans are attending their home matches on average than at Connah’s Quay.

The Nomads’ best home crowd of the season so far came on the opening weekend, when 603 supporters watched them take on Caernarfon Town.

Their most recent home fixture against Penybont, a battle between second and third, attracted 308 people.

Now the club wants to more than triple that figure for the visit of their local rivals.

This is about adding to what has already been built’

Catton is keen to stress that the project is not intended as a criticism of those who have run the club previously.

Instead, he sees the four-week project as an opportunity to experiment with what the next version of the Nomads’ matchday experience could look like.

“This isn’t about criticising what has gone before or pretending we can transform everything overnight,” he said.

“There are people who have given enormous amounts of their lives to this football club.

“What we’re trying to do is add to that work and ask what the next version of the matchday experience could look like.”

He believes the Nomads already have many of the ingredients needed to attract significantly bigger crowds.

“I genuinely believe all of the ingredients are already there,” he said.

“The Nomads have one of the biggest and best academies in Welsh football, they’re based in and around one of the biggest population centres in North Wales, they’ve had sustained success on the pitch and there are thousands of families living on the club’s doorstep.

“For me, it is a sleeping giant.”

Catton points to the progress made by clubs including Caernarfon Town, Colwyn Bay and Penybont in building crowds, atmosphere and a sense that going to a football match is an event in itself.

“There’s no reason we can’t build something special here as well,” he said.

The first major test of that idea will come when Flint Town United visit the Essity Stadium on November 6.

“The game on 6 November is our starting point rather than the finished product,” Catton said.

“We’re going to try things, some ideas will work and some probably won’t.

“The important thing is that we’re prepared to experiment, listen to supporters and start giving people another reason to come through the gates.”

Can Connah’s Quay reach their 1,000-fan target?

The Flintshire derby will take place at the Essity Stadium on November 6, giving Catton and the club four weeks to build momentum around the fixture.

The target of 1,000 would represent a significant increase on Connah’s Quay’s current average attendance and would also comfortably surpass their biggest home crowd of the season.

Catton says the journey will be documented over the coming weeks as the club looks at ways to improve what supporters experience on match day.

The Nomads are hoping the result will be a night to remember, both on and off the pitch.

And with a four-figure crowd firmly in their sights, there is now a very clear question hanging over the Flintshire derby: can Connah’s Quay get 1,000 people through the turnstiles?