Connor Roberts: ‘I couldn’t hold back the emotion. I wish Dad had seen me play’

His mum was calling.

“Unfortunately, she rang to say she thought my dad had tried to take his own life,” said Roberts. He rushed to his parents’ house, while a neighbour and close family friend, Steven, found Stuart in the shed.

“The police were already there, and Steven wouldn’t let me go in,” says Roberts, his voice slowing. “I just wanted to see if dad was OK, but I’m grateful Stephen stopped me going in.”

Roberts’s dad was 56 and had no history of depression until six weeks earlier. The last time that Roberts saw his father had been in Shrewsbury Hospital a short while before his passing.

“His mood had completely changed,” said Roberts, a goalkeeper who had spells at Everton, Fulham and Cheltenham. “There was a lot of sitting around, a lot of not living in the present, and not being present, if that makes sense.

“Unfortunately, he went about things the wrong way when it comes to depression. I also understand why he had been struggling. It makes you feel all those hurtful emotions, you lose confidence and there is anxiety. You just don’t feel like a person any more.”

Roberts felt “pure numbness” and “just wanted to be there” for his mum. “She’s very religious and an absolute saint,” he said. “My focus was making sure she was OK, and so I probably detached from myself too much. But I’m glad I did that.”

Roberts’s dad had become Stoke City’s youngest ever goalkeeper, but his career did not quite hit the heights, playing three times for the Potters in the 1984-85 season. Instead, he threw his energy into his son’s development.

“We spent many a day behind Stans Superstore [in Oswestry] and at my old school,” Roberts said. “When you’re not sharing the goal with six other keepers, you get lots of contact time and repetition. He knew what he was talking about and could serve a proper ball. He gave an awful lot to me in terms of advice and time. I miss those days.”

Stuart was “extremely tough” on Roberts and once left him behind in Chirk – a small town south of Wrexham – after a poor performance when he was 11, leaving Roberts to get a lift home with his coach.

“But I wouldn’t change it for the world,” said Roberts. “You get parents who just tell their children they’re brilliant, but I knew that when I got praise, it was true. Hearing his praise was extra special.”

Roberts was then a Wales youth prospect and joined Tranmere Rovers where he was mentored by John Achterberg, former Tranmere goalkeeper. Next, he moved to Everton, training regularly with Tim Howard and Marcus Hahnemann.

“With elite keepers, it’s like, ‘Wow, do you actually know where I’m going here?’ But they’re not guessing, they’re just so agile, so athletic.”

After a spell at Cheltenham Town, Roberts, who is now 32, returned home in 2015, playing in the Welsh Premier League for Bangor City, Aberystwyth Town, The New Saints, and, currently, Caernarfon Town.

He enjoyed most success at TNS, with the full-time club claiming a Welsh title “three-peat” while he was No 1 between 2022 and 2025. Having flirted with European qualification for two decades, they also made it into last season’s Europa Conference League group stages. For Roberts, those six games, including trips to Panathinaikos and Fiorentina, were equal parts blessing and curse.

“I couldn’t really hold the emotion back,” he tells The Observer.

“I just wish that dad had seen me playing on that stage. It really, really hurt. I cried to the manager in four of the games. I was absolutely emotionally knackered. When all the WhatsApp messages were coming in afterwards, and I didn’t get the one that said, ‘How did it go, pal?’ – that’s what dad always said, those exact words – those were the games I wanted to tell him about.”

The intensity and all-consuming nature of playing professionally became a burden and Roberts lost himself. He felt “mentally fatigued” and admits that there were times when depression had him contemplating suicide.

“That thought repeated in the brain, and then the panic attacks started,” he said.

“Depression is an absolutely disgusting disease, if we can call it that. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Last December, things almost turned to tragedy. “I sat there with my two-year-old boy and said, ‘Please be a good boy for mummy because daddy’s going to go soon.’ Something came across me and I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Fortunately, Roberts was lucid enough to drive to his mum’s house.

“I said, ‘Listen, I’m in a bit of trouble here.’ An hour later, after I’d calmed down and stopped panicking, I realised that that was another win, right?”

Roberts knows that he is “nowhere near over” his struggles. For every good day, there will be one where he is “sat there and the next thing I am thinking about is, ‘Oh, Connor let’s hope we don’t fall back into that.’ Not a day passes where I haven’t thought about it 20 times”.

By speaking out now, he hopes to help even just one person “grab someone and make sure they’re in a safe environment”.

Having intended to retire at the end of last season, Roberts has since returned to play part-time with Caernarfon. That was a move motivated by a call from an unknown number when he was sat in a tattoo parlour in May.

“It was [Wales manager] Craig Bellamy,” said Roberts. “He said: ‘We’d love to have you meet up with the Wales squad.’”

And so Roberts spent a week in Alicante, primarily as a player, but with Bellamy also helping prepare Roberts as a coach. “Ahead of all the team meetings he gave me that bit of extra detail as to why he was presenting in a certain way and what the principles were,” he said.

Roberts is now throwing his energy into coaching. He began in primary schools but has since earned his Uefa A Licence (general and goalkeeping). He remains TNS’s head of goalkeeping and teaches on the FAW’s A and B licence courses. His students include Wayne Hennessey, the former Wales goalkeeper, and former Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Keiren Westwood, while he is currently in Japan on his first residential course with the Wales under-18 squad.

“My full focus is on reaching the elite coaching levels,” Roberts said with a grin. Stuart would be proud.

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Photograph by Richard Saker for The Observer