Overview
New England Nomads AFC is the only Australian Football club in Armidale, fielding competitive men's and women's sides. Their previous site was ageing, hard to navigate and disconnected from the match data players and supporters actually wanted. The brief was a full refresh: new brand, new platform, and a site that could pull live fixtures, ladders and stats without manual upkeep.
Deliverables
- Fresh brand update across the site
- Migration of historical content from the previous site
- Improved information architecture and navigation
- Fully responsive, mobile-first layout
- PlayHQ data integration for fixtures and ladders
- Backend integration of player statistics
- Accessibility improvements, including skip-to-main-content and colour contrast fixes
- Migration from WordPress to a headless Sanity CMS
The Challenge
The old site ran on WordPress, wasn't mobile-friendly, and kept match results, ladders and historical content siloed from one another. Committee members had to manually update fixtures and results, which meant the site was often out of date on match day, when traffic was highest.
Approach
The rebuild centred on consolidating three separate sources: PlayHQ (live fixtures and results), backend player statistics, and general web content, into a single, coherent platform. Working closely with club stakeholders shaped the direction early on, from brand priorities through to what fixtures, ladders and player stats needed to look like for supporters checking the site on matchday. On the technical side, I collaborated with a backend developer to integrate PlayHQ data and player statistics, while I led the design and Sanity content architecture, giving the club an editable, headless CMS without the overhead of WordPress. Navigation and IA were reworked around how supporters and players actually use the site on matchday: checking fixtures, ladders and news from their phones.
Outcome
The new site gives the club a single, always-current source of truth for fixtures, results and stats, accessible on any device. Accessibility improvements mean the site meets WCAG 2.1 AA standards, and the move to a headless CMS gives the committee a much simpler way to keep content current without touching code.