Recently, I wrote a 3-page feature on the sport of roller derby for Lifescape magazine (www.lifescapemag.com).
Here it is - rollergirls, if you’re reading this, I hope I did the sport justice…and got all my facts right! Please don’t come after me on skates if I got stuff wrong! : )
You can email me to let me know if I did mess up (or compliment me on the feature), or come say hello to me at the next rollerderby bouts I go to watch…I’m going to BBDD vs MRR on 21 March, and the LRG intraleague final on 25 April x
ROLL WITH IT
Roller derby is a fast growing sport in the UK among women of all ages, including vegetarians and vegans. So why not keep that New Year’s resolution to exercise more by donning some skates and having a tussle on the track - Mary Sweeney reports…
Picture the scene: women of all ages and sizes decked out in flamboyant costumes flying around a track on roller skates at breakneck speed, armed with not much more than some protective gear, punk-ass monikers, and a whole lotta attitude. It’s fast, it’s furious, it’s roller derby, and it’s bucking the trend among women who often ‘opt-out’ of sports when they leave their school days behind.
Roller derby originated in the US in the 1930s as a type of sports entertainment involving skating around an oval track. Contemporary ‘amateur’ roller derby is predominantly single-sex and played by women, although the US still fields mixed-sex teams in the ‘professional’ leagues, and men’s roller derby is gradually gaining a foothold in the UK.
Since the inception of Britain’s first roller derby team in 2006 (London Rollergirls), there are now 15 teams across the country. New teams are formed on a regular basis by women inspired by the sport’s strong DIY ethic, with a little help and encouragement from existing clubs.
London Rollergirls’ Raw Heidi (in black) does a booty block to Sky Rockit (in pink) (Photo: Duncan Findlater)
Roller Derby Rules
So how does roller derby work? Teams have a number of skaters, but only five from each team are on the track at any one time. The sport uses quad skates (as opposed to inlines) and involves women racing counterclockwise around a flat track (all UK teams are flat track, but some US teams use banked tracks to play).
Teams consist of four defensive players and a ‘jammer’ – this player scores the points. The pack is composed of a ‘pivot’ – the lead blocker that sets the pace for the pack - and three ‘blockers’. On the first whistle, the pack set off, and the jammers start off 20 feet behind the pack when the second whistle blows.
The aim is for the jammers (who sport a star on their helmets to mark them out from the blockers) to make their way through the pack, and the first one to do so is the ‘lead jammer’. The jammers then have to skate ahead of the pack and pass through them again, with the lead jammer scoring points for every girl she passes. Jams last for two minutes, or until the lead jammer ‘calls off the jam’, and new players come onto the track. Games – or bouts as they are known – typically consist of two 30 minute sessions with an interval.
The strong risk of injuries on the track means that players must be 18 or over to play but some clubs allow juniors to skate at sessions (junior derby leagues exist in the US), and teams need countless volunteers – both male and female – to help as referees, scorekeepers, and announcers so almost anyone with an interest can help out in the derby scene.
London Rollergirls’ Team Pink and Team Black fight it out on the track (Photo: Duncan Findlater)
Riot Grrls
The sport boasts a heady mixture of feminist athleticism and a fun-loving, slightly camp attitude. Nowhere is roller derby’s camp sentiment more prevalent than in the sport’s love of word play for skater aliases. Skaters pick their own derby girl name, using popular culture puns (Missyle Elliot), mock-violent monikers (Violet Attack) or alliteration (Mistress Malicious). Combine their alter-egos with individualised team costumes, and you get a sport that mixes guts and glamour and gives girls a sport to which they pledge undying loyalty.
Roller derby’s indie ethos makes it a natural sporting home for women with alternative ideologies and lifestyles, including vegetarians and vegans. As 39-year-old vegetarian rollergirl Lucy Taylor (aka Roisin Roulette) points out, “It isn’t a macho sport, so there’s no eat-steak-drink-Guinness ethos. Roller derby is described as the sport for women who don’t play games. I guess that’s a good fit for a lot of vegetarians & vegans.”
Glasgow Roller Girl Sarah McMillan (aka Skate Edge) has been a vegan for 12 years, and thinks that ‘alternative’ sports always have greater appeal to girls with veggie lifestyles. Sarah says, “I’ve been around skateboarding and BMX for a long time and there does tend to be a lot of veggies and vegans in those kinds of sports. I suppose if you’re open minded enough to think outside of the box, the activities you pursue follow suit.”
Roller derby unites women from all walks of life – the sports fanatics, and the women who have never found a physical activity to suit them in the past. On the track, it’s not uncommon to see solicitors and full-time mothers rubbing shoulders with students and tattoo artists. 29-year-old vegan Rebecca Hadley (aka Cyanide Cupcake) runs a tattoo studio in north London and rolls with the London Rockin Rollers. “What I love about roller derby,” says Rebecca, “is that you can knock someone over on the track, but an hour later, you’re doing shots down the bar with them.”
The sport often produces derby ‘widows and widowers’ – partners of rollergirls who often end up helping out at the track just so they can see their loved ones more often! Zoe Powell (aka Minx’A’Matosis) rolls with the Lincolnshire Bombers Roller Girls and has first-hand experience of living with a derby widower. “My other half used to pine a bit,” jokes Zoe, “However, he has took the plunge and offered to be a static referee, so it is great to be able to run through the official rules with him now at home.”
The DIY ethos runs right through the sport, not only in terms of starting teams, but running them, as well as promotions, sponsorship, and fundraising nights, which raise funds for the team or favoured local or women’s charities.
Glasgow Roller Girls (Photo: Denise Milligan)
When Fitness Is Fun
Something that’s almost easy to forget is the fitness element – but for all of derby’s fun and exhibitionism, roller derby is a sport, and is taken seriously by the girls involved, who regularly train between two and four times a week for up to three hours at a time.
A typical training session (average cost is £5) includes endurance drills, general fitness training (stretching, circuits) and derby-specific skills and drills such as blocking and playing the game – known as scrimmaging. Most clubs offer the first session for free to newbies interested in trying the sport, and can often loan skates to new recruits or offer skate hire at their training hall.
Eirin Sullivan (aka Victoria Cross), 25, is a PhD student and rolls with the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames in her after-study time. It was a friend who got Eirin hooked on roller derby. “I always loved rollerskating as a kid, and when I saw a friend was playing a full contact sport on rollerskates, I had to join in the fun,” says Eirin. It’s a mere nine months since she became a derby girl, but Eirin has already noticed a difference in her fitness levels.
“It’s definitely improved my cardio-vascular fitness and has also strengthened my calf and quad muscles,” says Eirin, “I’ve found it’s really benefited me as I had a bad knee injury a few years ago so need to keep my leg muscles strong. The biggest plus by far though, is that whatever shape or size you are – after a few months playing roller derby you will suddenly find you have the most beautifully pert derriere - my derby widower certainly noticed!”
While some rollergirls buy skate gear from the US – where the sport has a huge underground following – British skate shops have also noticed a marked increase in derby fanatics – veterans and newbies – coming through the doors.
Veggie rollergirl Jo Bell (aka Von Bitch) works in London skate shop, Skate Attack. “Some of the older generation are coming back into derby who were there at the start of the sport in the UK two years ago,” says Jo, a London Rockin Roller. “They’re coming in and advising us on the best derby kit to stock.”
And the sport caters well for vegans – so if you’re hell bent for pleather, then check out the big skate manufacturers such as Riedell and Suregrip, both of which make vegan derby skates - prices start at the £150 mark.
At present, roller derby is not recognised by the British Roller Sports Federation (the national governing body for all roller sports), but it could only be a matter of time as the sport matures in the UK. Roisin Roulette of the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames says the BRSF would welcome an application from roller derby, and there are plans in the pipeline to set up a UK roller derby association. “It’s a fast growing sport, and we appeal to women who do not currently play any sports, which a big target for government sports funding,” adds Roisin.
We predict a riot? It’s Poison Arrow vs Belle De Brawl in a London
Rollergirls’ intra-league bout (Photo: Duncan Findlater)
Women In Sport
Roller derby’s presence in the UK is timely. According to the Women’s Fitness and Sport Federation (wsff.org.uk), more than 80% of women and girls are not doing enough physical activity to benefit their health, and young women are now half as active as young men. The situation is forecast to get even worse over the next ten years.
Women’s Fitness and Sport Federation CEO, Sue Tibballs, thinks there has to be a different approach when it comes to getting women into sport. “One of our key recommendations is to ‘give the customer what she wants’, “says Sue. “Women have different needs to men and it’s important that these are understood and met by sport in order to attract more females.
“With a sport such as roller derby, where there is a high level of women both in leadership positions and participating, they can help shape the way it’s run in order to make the provision as female-friendly as possible. With any success story such as this there are valuable lessons to learn, and one of the things we do is note the reasons why women are participating and share the learnings with other sports.”
Lynsey Hooper, 26, is a freelance sports reporter for Sky and the BBC, and thinks part of the problem lies in the lack of funding and comparisons to men’s sport. “Women’s sport hasn’t been receiving a lot of funding for that long, but I think it’s getting there,” says Lynsey, “but part of the problem is that sports fans expect a direct comparison; they expect it to be the same as men’s sports, and it’s not.”
Roller derby is still – and may always be – a grassroots level sport. But could there ever be a time where it receives more media coverage alongside traditional sports such as football and rugby? “If it’s tied in with a lifestyle or a social scene, then yes,” says Lynsey. “Snowboarding and skiing have a definite lifestyle to them. You incorporate a lifestyle into a sport, and people buy into that.”
So if you’re not a gym bunny, and football isn’t your thing, then maybe roller derby is the way to go if you’re after a toned and fit figure in 2009. As Natalie Boxall (aka Germaine Leer), founder of the Middlesbrough Milk Rollers, points out, “It’s the sport for girls who don’t like exercise. It’s so much fun that you don’t notice how much hard work goes in. It’s also nice to be part of a grass roots sport that is all about doing it yourself with likeminded ladies, and being proactive.”
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Links:
www.derbyroster.com – a list of roller derby teams worldwide (including all UK teams)
www.twoevils.org/rollergirls - the International Rollergirl Register
www.wftda.com – Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (US organisation)
www.murda.co.uk – Men’s UK Roller Derby Association (male UK roller derby)
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The above feature is in the Feb/March 2009 issue of Lifescape magazine, available in selected shops now, or you can order a copy online at www.lifescapemag.com - enter NEW2 when ordering to get a discount.
