Learning a new sport is hard. Creating one - well, that's a different challenge entirely.

Despite being one of the most popular participant sports in the world, basketball has not always been accessible to people with blindness and low vision.

In Frankston, Victoria, a team of low vision sportspeople and support workers are changing that.

Tanya Thomas, the program support officer at the Frankston and District Basketball Association, began toying with the idea of hosting vision impaired basketball sessions after she realised that the club's All Abilities Program didn't cater to people with blindness and low vision.

However, it quickly became clear that this was an issue not isolated to her club alone.

Remarkably, she couldn't find any versions of the sport designed for people with vision impairments anywhere in the world.

"We were finding regular competitions that may have a blind athlete [playing in them], but there were no modifications in place for that person," Thomas said.

Thomas, who does not have experience living with low vision, knew that input from people with that experience would be vital to getting the idea off the ground.

This input came from members of the local vision impaired table tennis club.

"We literally sat down around the roundtable and had our discussion. It was almost textbook," Thomas said.

Getting the feel for it

Brad Hoare was present at those early meetings and has been instrumental to the development of the program.

Although he was only diagnosed as legally blind in 2018, his eyesight had started deteriorating long before.

Having played on sighted teams either side of his diagnosis, he was in the perfect position to both guide the creation of the sport and to help mentor participants who had never played basketball before.

"I [also] still have enough vision to see the three point line, the half court line…and all those positions on the court".

However, Hoare and Thomas knew that this wouldn't be the case for many of the participants.

Early on in the process, they developed a braille map that players could use to familiarise themselves with the court.

They also brought in a retractable ring and net for participants to feel.

Daniel is another participant whose vision has deteriorated dramatically in recent years.

Despite still possessing a degree of nearsightedness, he struggles to see things more than a couple of metres away from him.

Before participating in the vision impaired program, Daniel had never played any form of basketball.

Understandably, the combination of learning a new sport as well as mentally mapping his surroundings was a challenge.

"It took a couple weeks to get used to it, that's for sure," Daniel said.

Daniel is only just in the process of learning braille, so the braille map wasn't as helpful to him as it was for some of the other participants.

But rather than being confined to only one half of the court, he used different methods to get to grips with his surroundings.

Learning code

At the start of sessions, participants walk forward from the baseline to the middle of the court, following Thomas' voice and counting how many steps it takes to get there.

"That way, when we're moving later, if we're standing at half court, we can know that if we take 10 steps, then we're going to be near the key or we're going to be closer to the ring. So there's a lot of remembering involved," Thomas said.

Along with the constant mental arithmetic, sound is vital for players mapping the court.

A bluetooth speaker is connected to the net, and from it, the sound of an alarm clock is played constantly during shooting drills.

While defending, players wear wrist bells so the attacking players can hear where they are.

The ball also has bells within it, however it only rings when rotated. Due to this, only passes that bounce are permitted.

Players are constantly communicating with each-other, asking for passes and letting the other players know exactly where the ball is going.

As a result of these 'codewords', participants not only know where the ball is at all times, but are also engaged with their teammates.

By implementing these visual and audio aids, Thomas hopes that the sport is accommodating of people with all types of vision impairments.

"Having all this the same across the board for everybody — having to do the bounce passes, having to use the codewords, it makes it a lot easier and more fun," Thomas said.

In the months since the program officially kicked off, Hoare and Thomas have seen tangible improvements in both the makeup of the game itself and the skills of the participants.

"I'm just finding that it's a great learning curve," Hoare said.

Moving forward, full scale games and tournaments lay on the horizon, but exactly how they look is still yet to be seen.

Hoare believes that the only way to get there is by continuing to work with different ideas from players across the visual spectrum.

"People can make assumptions of what people with low vision or no vision can or cannot do. But that's not something anyone else should be in charge of — only the person with the visual issues should be able to decide."

Henry Hanson is a journalist and content producer who has a passion for telling stories about inclusivity and sport.