Ex-professional footballer Aaron Brown is celebrating his biggest booking – a trip to Las Vegas for Mansfield Town FC’s first team.

Aaron, a homeworker who runs Tomorrow’s Travel Today, part of the Travel Trust Association, in Bristol, has thanked Gold Medal’s Kelly Fortin for helping him get the group booking for 21 people over the line.

The booking came through Mansfield Town’s Captain Oli Clark, also from Bristol, who had previously used Aaron to book his own holiday to Dubai.

Aaron said: “I booked Oli’s holiday a couple of years ago, after someone recommended me to him, and we have stayed in touch since.

“Last week, Mansfield Town were promoted to League One and the club owners rewarded the team with a trip to Las Vegas. Oli reached out to me to see what I could do.

“They all wanted direct flights but because it was such late notice, there weren’t enough for the whole team and there was a fair bit of going backwards and forwards. At one point, I thought I had lost the booking, but thanks to Kelly at Gold Medal’s patience, we got it over the line.

“I honestly can’t thank Kelly enough. She was brilliant. I must have been doing her head in. She stayed on late at work to help me. The enquiry went from 23 people to 19 to 21 again. I sent details of the first flights that were available over to the boys and they were umming and ahhing about it. By the time they got back, the flights weren’t available.

“She hung in there and eventually we managed to find indirect flights for 21 of the team, via Dallas, with direct flights back.”

The team will fly out at the beginning of May, for four nights. The booking is worth around £40,000 and Aaron said it is his biggest booking yet.

Aaron, 44, is a former professional footballer, who retired from the game at 37.

He said: “When I was playing football, I was always the one who booked our end-of-season trip. That’s what made me think about moving into a career in travel. I know a lot of footballers and I do book a fair amount of trips for them. But this is my biggest booking so far.”

Gold Medal Managing Director Simon Applebaum said: “Everything we do is with our agent partners in mind, so when they need help or support with a booking we will always go above and beyond. Our sales consultants have great relationships with agents and these bonds have been built through showing our commitment to them time and time again – we do this because we truly care.”