Our Vision Support Advisor, Richard Deadman, speaks to Chelsea Football Club.

Richard tells his story of how a kind gesture from a work colleague, and his love of football, changed his life after sight loss.

I’ve been type-1 diabetic since the age of four after I had measles, which caused my pancreas to close down, and at the age of 27 I lost my eyesight. I went to bed fully sighted and when I woke up the next day, it was just blackness – I fell out of bed and couldn’t see a thing out of either eye.

I was like that for just over five weeks, until they did the first bit of surgery on my better eye. I now have 70 per cent vision in the left eye but I’m still totally blinded in my right eye. They said to me at the time, it wasn’t due to how I was handling my diabetes at 27, it was down to how I had been looking after myself when I was in my late teens. I have to be honest, at that age I didn’t really listen to advice.

I was working as a mortgage underwriter at the time I lost my sight, and I ended up having to move into a different role, faxing and photocopying. Those dark days were bad – you can’t see to wash, you can’t see to dress, you can’t see to eat, or do anything.

A colleague knew that I was a Chelsea season ticket holder and she knew I was still going to games, even though I couldn’t see. Without telling me, she wrote to the club to ask if they could do anything, because it might just be the boost that I needed.

Chelsea sent a signed photo from Jose Mourinho and a signed Chelsea magazine from Frank Lampard, wishing me all the best, and my colleagues presented it to me in front of the whole office. I just broke down. That kept me going. I didn’t want to live at that point, I’d lost my sight literally
overnight and I was suicidal. Frank Lampard and Jose Mourinho: these are people I’d idolised. It was about 2006, and for them to have written to me and signed it just made me feel amazing.

I now work for 4Sight Vision Support, helping other people going through a similar time to what I experienced. You have a certain empathy for people in that position, and to be able to say, “I’m here for you,” and to help with the little things can go a long way, like sending them a liquid level indicator
for making a cup of tea or something. I love the job, I really do.

I’m still able to come to football, and now I’ve got a pass which helps me. I contacted Chelsea to say that matchdays were becoming difficult for me, as I was bumping into people at night games when I can’t see. They reached out and were brilliant, to be honest with you. I’ve now got a second ticket next to mine in the Matthew Harding Lower so my dad can come with me and help me.

I’m fortunate enough to say that I’ve seen a lot of changes in my time coming to Chelsea. When I was a kid, getting to the ZDS Cup final in 1990 was the pinnacle! What a day that was! I went to school the next week bouncing – I was delighted that we’d won a cup.

I was at Highbury for the FA Cup semi-final against Wimbledon in 1997, behind the goal where Zola scored his goal in the North Bank. Then I was at the final… Di Matteo after 40-odd seconds. Wow! What a time to be 18, and see Chelsea win the FA Cup.

I was in the lower tier of the away end up at Bolton when Frank scored the goals to win us the league in 2005. When he skipped past Jaaskelainen, I was just like, “Here we go!” To see Chelsea win the league, and then see the players get on top of the bus outside the stadium, was amazing.

The highlight, of course, was winning the Champions League. I’d been out in Moscow in 2008 when we lost on penalties, and that hurt. So to come back and win it in Munich, when big Didier just rose – I was behind that goal. It was brilliant.

At the heart of so much of it was Frank Lampard. Our all-time top scorer, one of the Premier League’s greatest scorers. What a player and what a man – proper legend. I managed to meet him a couple of times at the Player of the Year awards but I never did mention that signed magazine and what it meant to me. I’d have loved to do that but how do you muster up the confidence to say to someone, “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”