George, a visually impaired season ticket holder at Birmingham City, can now follow matches independently thanks to the club's Audio Descriptive Commentary (ADC) system, introduced in December last year in partnership with Alan March Sport.
Before the ADC system, George struggled to get the full picture during matches due to his inability to identify players or see key details, and he relied heavily on friends and family to describe what was happening. Now, he is the one keeping his father up to speed with everything going on at the other end of the pitch.
How the ADC system works
George's optic nerve, which carries visual messages from the eye to the brain, does not receive the full blood supply, meaning the vision getting through to his brain is far weaker. He also has nystagmus, an involuntary, rhythmic shaking of the eyes, which is corrected by his brain but leaves a blurring effect on his vision. Ultimately, he needs to be six times closer than a fully sighted person to see at the same level of definition. While that is obviously not possible at a football match, Blues' ADC system completely takes it out of the equation and lets him experience the game directly through his ears instead.
George's father said: "George is now able to follow matches in a way none of us thought was possible and has a far greater understanding of them. They provide such a detailed description to the extent that I, as someone who considers myself to have pretty good eyesight, sometimes find myself turning to ask George things like 'Who assisted that goal?'."
Impact on the family
George's mother added: "George was a very premature baby, born with many health problems at just 27 weeks and five days, and experienced a bleed on the brain which caused his left hemiplegic cerebral palsy and visual impairment. Despite this, we are absolutely delighted that he can experience his hobby in the same way as a fully sighted spectator would. It has opened up a whole new world of opportunity for George and we couldn't be any more grateful to Birmingham City."
The ADC system has received rave reviews from supporters and opened up entirely new opportunities for visually impaired fans.
The commentator's perspective
Audio Descriptive Commentator Tom Heslop feels deeply responsible for ensuring his passion carries beyond the microphone. "You're doing the job for them," Heslop said of his listeners. "You're one of the main reasons why they've come to the match and you are going to provide them with their sole source of entertainment and transparency throughout the game. I think that's such an incredibly powerful thing as an Audio Descriptive Commentator. I've seen videos online of visually impaired supporters who had their brothers and cousins there talking them through everything that was happening, and to know that you're doing that for someone else is such an amazing feeling."
Heslop, who has previously worked alongside BBC Radio WM, added: "I'm a Birmingham City fan myself, as are a couple of my colleagues at Blues, and I'd like to hope that it comes across in the passion of the Audio Descriptive Commentating that we do. But you do have to solely try and focus on the job at hand. If you - as an Audio Descriptive Commentator - take your eye off the ball even just for a moment, then the person who is listening to you loses their understanding of the game and that can't happen. We are there to provide the service for them and that is our sole purpose."
Audio Descriptive Commentary is very different to something you might hear on the radio, and Heslop was eager to stress its importance. "If you listen to a normal commentary you might just think 'Oh, it's for everybody', when in actual fact it's not. You can be listening to something on the radio and the commentators can go off on a tangent for 10, 15, 20 seconds at a time and you don't actually know whereabouts you are with the play," he added. "Providing Audio Descriptive Commentary was something that really took some time to wrap my head around because for those supporters who are blind and visually impaired - and that are actually at a football match - you have to be so pinpoint to the exact accuracy of what's happening. It might be describing your surroundings, where the ball is, what the weather's like, the pyrotechnics before a game, where the stands are in relation to where we're sitting in the press box, what's down in front of us - where we sit, we have Chris Davies' technical area directly in front of us and to our left is the away technical area. Whatever it is, you have to learn to factor it into how you're going to picture a game for those who are blind or visually impaired and at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park."
As Heslop put it, the service provides "an avenue and insight into the world's biggest game through the perspective of somebody who wants somebody else to enjoy it as much as they are."
