WORLD Cup television should sound good this summer if a local firm achieves its goals.

Video Sound Services scored with organisers in Japan and Korea in the run up to this year's football extravaganza.

The firm that has been providing sound mixing services for soccer on Sky Television for the past 10 years - and invented the famous "whoosh" before an action replay - landed a deal to do the same for the World Cup.

VSS is building a surround sound control room that will be assembled in Kent and then flown to the Far East for installation in the main broadcasting centre.

With sound coming from 20 football stadiums in Japan and Korea, and pictures likely to be watched by more than a billion people, the job is a huge one.

But Robert Edwards, from Bearsted, and Ian Rosam, from Tunbridge Wells, are experts in the sound business.

They both spent many years with commercial television TVS at Maidstone Studios before TVS lost the franchise to Meridian.

After taking their redundancy cheques, they teamed up to found VSS and become sound directors - planning, mixing and managing sound engineers.

Mr Edwards has been in the industry for 25 years and won a prestigious BAFTA award for best sound for a live concert from Salisbury Cathedral.

He is also involved in ITV's Pop Idols, City Hospital for the BBC and Night Fever for Channel 5. Other numerous credits include Gladiators and the Royal Variety Show.

Surprisingly, neither man likes football. "It's just how things have happened," Mr Edwards said. "But we like the variety. I spend two days a week in the studio, two days on an outside broadcast, two days in post-production, which leaves one day off."

Mr Rosam spends much of the year on documentaries. His latest assignment is a profile of former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.