A South Melbourne resident (and former player with the old NSL club), Petrovic says the commitment, desire and skills of some blind players defies their disability.

But, more importantly, playing soccer in a team framework enhances their self confidence and allows them to feel the joy and elation that the billions of able-bodied players and fans of the world game experience.

''These are people who show fantastic dedication to play the game and compete as well as they can. The goalkeepers can be fully sighted, but the outfield players can't," Petrovic says.

''Only the legally blind games require players to play with an ''audible ball'' [one which has a bell inside it to allow players to hear where the ball is].''

''You learn a lot from refereeing blind and partially sighted players. It's amazing how they develop their sense of perception, how they use their voices to communicate and how they seem to just feel the others' presence around them.

''I learn from them. We all have special talents and its great to see them maximising theirs.''

Football Federation Victoria has been running a series of  introductory and training sessions at South Melbourne's Lakeside Stadium for the next few weeks.

There are also plans for a mini futsal (five-a-side) tournament to be staged in June under the auspices of FFV.

This competition will be played to IBSA (International Blind Soccer Association) Partially Sighted Futsal rules and played by B2 and B3 classified athletes – those who are partially sighted, not legally blind. The games will be played between Sunday June 17 to Sunday July 8 and the FFV – and Petrovic – is hopeful that there will be a strong turnout.

Sports development worker Dave Connolly is the volunteer co-ordinator for Australian Blind Football and has been working to get the game off the ground in Melbourne for four years.

'We had national selection trials late last year and announced a squad and had our first national camp at Essendon FC in Tullamarine on 5-6 May,'' he explains.

''Our blind football team ([Paralympic version, B1 totally blind players] are looking to go to a tournament in India in October while our vision impaired players [B2/B3] are looking to go to Malaysia for friendlies in August.''

Connolly himself is due to travel to Madrid early in June for the Blind Football World Championships in his capacity as Oceania representative on the international football committee, a trip he hopes will give him the chance to build networks and find further ways of funding the sport.

''We are working on a memorandum of understanding with FFA. They have supplied playing kit but have no funding to develop the sport over next couple of years. We have started to also work with the APC [Australian Paralymic Committee] but they also have no funding under their current funding model.''

Sharon Wong of the FFV says that with 17 registered players – of all ages and vision-impaired levels – in this state there are enough for two futsal teams with substitutes.

''Every week we are getting more and more people interested. Some try it and don't like it or find its not suitable, but others love it and want to stay involved," Wong said.