By Seb Norton

Club supporting accessibility campaign

Tuesday evening's home fixture against Bristol City will be the Club's dedicated Level Playing Field 'Weeks of Action' fixture.

Level Playing Field is a charity that campaigns for social inclusion and acts as a campaigning and advisory organisation to its membership and other parties across all sports. 

Alongside its efforts in promoting the need for equality and disability access within stadia across the country, Level Playing Field also offers useful resources for disabled sports fans, including a Club page to allow disabled fans attending a Premier League, EFL or National League stadium to effectively plan their visit, depending on accessibility needs. 

As part of this year's campaign, the Club has launched its fully accessible stadium tours, with the first held on Friday, 1 March, and designed to support all disabilities on an exclusive and inclusive look at Portman Road. 

With the newly launched tour of Portman Road being extremely popular, it was recognised as crucial to the Club to be able to provide an insightful look into the stadium for those who may require further support. 

Therefore, the tour allowed a reduced capacity group which allowed personal assistants to attend, with packs provided to support those with sensory needs. Subtitled video clips were made available, alongside a British Sign Language specialist being present to interpret the guides’ explanations, as well as to allow questions to be asked by those who are hearing impaired. A consideration was also made by the tour guides to explain the visual elements of each room in further details to those visually impaired, with extra staff on-hand to assist the group throughout the tour.

Following the success of the event, further accessible tours will soon be made available, with information to be communicated in due course.

 

harrison

The Club’s and Level Playing Field’s views are aligned, in that that being a disabled person is a social issue and that someone only becomes disabled because of the social, attitudinal and environmental barriers that the individual faces.

Last season, the Club implemented various new features, with an aim to continue to make matchdays more accessible to supporters. An update on the progress of each of these can be seen below:

Soccer Sight

Soccer Sight allows visually impaired supporters to listen to full-match commentary for all league and cup fixtures from within the stadium, to help improve the matchday experience The Club provides 12 Audio Descriptive Commentary sets to both home and away supporters on a matchday. With roughly a dozen sets being used regularly, on both a seasonal and match-to-match basis.

Sensory Packs

Sensory Packs are designed to enhance the experience of fans, particularly autistic supporters. Each pack is presented in an official Ipswich Town Foundation drawstring bag, and contains a disability awareness lanyard, as well as noise-cancelling headphones, a Foundation branded fidget spinner and a Foundation branded soft stress ball.

Around 100 packs are available throughout the season, with 60 season ticket holders utilising these. The rest are made available to supporters on a match-by-match basis. 

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At Seat Service

At Seat Service is an amenity available to around 300 disabled supporters and personal assistants, providing support with the purchase of refreshments by disabled fans in-game,

Upon receiving feedback that many disabled fans find concourses too busy and difficult to navigate pre-match and at half-time, the service has been implemented in all eight accessible areas at Portman Road, with a simple online order to delivery process involved.

Car Park Assistance

The Disability Liaison Officer’s matchday assistants offer support to accessible areas from nearby carparks surrounding the stadium.

This is a vital service to around 12 supporters who attend Portman Road independently, with the matchday assistants also able to support with returning equipment provided by the Club during the game and are also on-hand to assist following matches too.

The Ipswich Town Foundation run various programmes and initiatives, including adult and youth disability football alongside frame and Powerchair football.

As part of the campaign, the Club will be speaking with Harrison Kemp; a vital member of the Foundation’s Powerchair Football team, and a season ticket holder with the Club.

Subtitles on TownTV

The Club has also introduced the option of subtitles when watching live first-team games on TownTV. The Club is also looking to develop other areas on TownTV, with more information to be released in due course.

DOM BALL