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Rob Houwing, Sport24 chief writer

Cape Town – A revolutionary, enhanced sound experience for blind and visually impaired soccer fans at some World Cup stadiums has been described as “very worthwhile” by at least one recipient of the service.

And not even the constant, intrusive din of vuvuzelas appears to have interfered too detrimentally with the experience.

So says Claremont, Cape Town resident Jeremy Opperman, who first took advantage of the initiative for the group match in the city between Portugal and North Korea.

It was the product of collaboration between the Swiss National Association for the Blind (SNAB) and South African National Council for the Blind (SANCB), with financial support from FIFA.

Sony, one of the soccer governing body’s commercial partners, provided the necessary transmitters allowing blind enthusiasts at six designated World Cup venues and certain matches to receive a particularly detailed live match commentary.

Each of the six grounds, including Cape Town Stadium, Moses Mabhiba Stadium in Durban and both Johannesburg venues, had 15 seats equipped with headphones, as well as accompanying seating for a sighted guide in each instance.

Blind or visually impaired fans thus paid the South African Category Four price of R140 for a group-stage match ticket, including an additional seat free of charge.

Opperman was accompanied by his sighted 13-year-old son, Benjamin, after a successful appeal against an earlier stipulation that guides be 18 or older. “My son is more aware of my specific needs than most,” Opperman pointed out.

He said blind fans were handed “a small MP3 player with an FM receiver” and accompanying industrial-type headgear.

“You could still hear the vuvuzelas and general crowd noise, but certainly not to the point of irritation. If anything, you sometimes felt you were in a soundproof room and a little isolated – every now and then I took it off briefly to take in the real stadium sounds.”

Opperman said the audio provided, with two commentators alternating every 10 minutes, was “infinitely better than television commentary” and much more personalised.

“Tom Purcell was especially good: he even mentioned, for instance, little details like whenever a Mexican Wave was coming our way.”

British-born Purcell runs a marketing research business in Hout Bay, is no stranger to listeners of the Fine Music Radio station and also serves as chairperson of a South African Chelsea Supporters Club.

“We were placed in the fourth row, very close to the pitch, and got drenched during the downpours as a result. But being that close to the action was more of a benefit than a hindrance in my case and the whole experience was definitely rewarding.”