Straight from the Zebra’s mouth

Alarm set for 5am? Check…

A pity I didn’t tell the cats (I currently have six) who decided to wake me at 4:30. Ah, well, what’s half an hour…

Road trips can be stressful, so I’d already planned for every contingency, or so I thought. Getting nine Leeds Roller Dolls, two Zebras, and a Coach in the same place, at the same time, when they’re not bouting (and without alcohol as an incentive) is an achievement… and I failed. I shall name no names, but two people managed to forget to set any alarm clocks (but one of them is “60ish”). A slight detour ensued and the missing Carrie On… crew were rounded up and the fun began.

Oh, did I mention that the mini-bus was limited to 62mph (I now know how Jenson Button et al feel in the Pit Lane!). I only found that out as we hit the A1(M). Ho, and indeed, hum.

By roughly 8:00 we were breakfasting at the greatest greasy spoon in the country – Scotch Corner Truck Stop – and then took in the view travelling along the A66: the camel farm, clouds in the valley beneath us, and the desolation that makes up the County Durham/Cumbria borderlands. Oh, and everyone got to see the famed Smithy in Gretna during a comedy ‘need to find a toilet’ detour. Stressed? Not even close!

Once in Glasgow, and having dropped off a Zebra at traffic lights near the venue, I found us a parking space a few minutes walk from the ARC Sports Centre – and hit another speed bump. The event ran from 11:30 to 16:00, but I could only park for four hours. Ah, well… I’d figure something out.

And so, on to the event itself.

Romsey Town Rollerbillies, in their debut bout, took on Maiden Grrders in what I can only presume was an officially ‘unofficial’ bout – two twenty minute periods instead of the usual thirty minutes a half. That confusion aside, it was possibly the most exciting bout I’ve seen yet. Whilst Big Cat Merv did a sterling job of play-by-play commentary the Grrders and Rollerbillies fought tooth and nail to a time-limit draw. The crowd, who you *could* call slightly partisan, were simply loving it, and weren’t shy about letting said fact be known. The bout went to an Overtime Jam, with Romsey eking out by 3 points!

And congratulations to Darmonatrix (Rollerbillies), who bagged Best Blocker and Best Take Down awards.

During the intermission I legged it back to the LRD Battle Bus to look for suitable alternative parking near by. Once the main event finished (if it did so on time) I would have eight minutes to get move it otherwise. Stressed much? Ha! Bring it on!

Having been joined by Skatrix (Severn Roller Torrent ), and sharing brief asides with Ms’Isle (Liverpool Roller Birds ), I settled in for the first half of the main event: GRG’s Irn Bruisers vs. the Rainy City Rollergirls. As Big Cat Merv reminded us that the Bruisers were the third placed team at Roll Britannia, it quickly became apparent that Rainy City were in for a hard time. I’m not going to sell them short: they fought hard, and pulled off some pretty neat stuff on track, but even with the Bruisers down to two players on track they couldn’t quite get their groove on.

And yes, there was a *lot* of penalty box action – GRG regularly seemed to be playing short on track. 

(At half time, I legged back to the mini-bus, and moved it – we could do without parking tickets or wheel clamps!)

Evel Von Detta! image from http://londonrollergirls.fotopic.net/p59893539.html

Rainy City were in with a chance when the bout re-started, having chipped away at their opponent’s score through a series of powerplays, but the Bruisers simply stepped it up a notch. Rainy City’s Mookchops and Dee-Mise deserve special mention, as does Feral Fairy, for gutting it out against the Bruisers’ defense and putting more points on the board, but when you’re skating up to Evel Von Detta (who’s skating *backwards* whilst smack-talking you) and you’ve got Dreaded Dragon simply *gliding* around the track like she’s on rails, then maybe it’s too steep a mountain to climb.

The Irn Bruisers won, convincingly, but Rainy City definitely punched above their weight for the first half. I’m sure the Dolls were paying attention too – LRD travel to RCRG on November 28th.

Various chins were wagged, and LRD’s Rushin’ Doll (who’d travelled up separately) gave us the heads up on where to park for the after party. For my part, I nattered with a few of my stripey brethren,

Zebra Huddle!

then rounded up everyone and made tracks to Sauciehall Street (where Matt The Knife and I nom-nom-nom’d KFC and the Dolls went slightly more up-class). A few (soft) drinks later I suddenly realised I hadn’t paid the meter when we’d parked up for the after party – but there was no parking ticket, and no wheel clamp! Someone, somewhere, obviously likes me… can’t think why ; )

However, before the after party truly got into gear, we had to gracefully bow out and hit the road. Suffice to say, it took much longer to get home, and I think my head finally hit the pillow at about 1:30. And the cats woke me at 4:30 again… but who wants to lie in on a Sunday anyway?

 

Written by El Toupee, LRD ref in training.

Next up – LRD versus RCRG!
See http://rcrg.co.uk/ for more details

Laughing in the purple rain

Leeds Roller Dolls and Central City Rollergirls at Northern Exposure

When we at Doll and Action Man HQ heard that our derby sisters, the wonderful Rainy City Rollergirls were celebrating their first birthday with a pickup scrimmage and a purple, black and silver themed party we uttered a collective “Heck Yeah” and set off westwards to join in.

In the end five Dolls and our lovely head ref, Matt the Knife, landed on the amusingly tilted ‘Fit City’ sports centre (“not FAT city, FIT city” Anna Tomic, RCRG travel team skater, emphasised as we took the first of many wrong turnings en route). Strapping on skates and messing about on the track we were heard chirruping “Coo when does the scrimmage start?” and “Eeek the famous C-Rex of London Rollergirls is here! Hope we don’t get smushed by her!”.

We all split into teams of black tee shirts versus white tee shirts, and then the scrimmage was ON! Skating with people whose names you do not even know, never mind their skill level or on-track foibles, really shakes you out of any complacency you might have grown when only scrimmaging with your own team mates. Hearing skaters from other leagues comment on how good your team mates are garners two thumbs up. And, inevitably getting smushed by C-Rex and Hooligal (London Rocking Rollers) cannot help but improve one’s determination to improve one’s getting out of the way/ counter blocking skills!!

The wonderful rainy city league had plenty more treats in store for us other than pick up scrimmaging  – pass the parcel pace-lines, queen of the track, stuck in the mud and ‘refs versus rollergirls’ scrimmaging all preceded the afterparty. And yep, Rainy City do know how to party!

Thanks to Rainy City for such a lovely day of derby love… now we Dolls *really* cannot wait to boutyou in November! Please keep checking our website, twitter and this blog for further announcements about Leeds Roller Dolls versus Rainy City Rollergirls.

Next up for the Leeds Roller Dolls will be our birthday trip to Carrie on Skating… aha! Another chance to party with the Rainy City ladies!

 

Written by Rikkter Scale #21, skater for LRD

STOP PRESS: A write up of our **win** at the exhibition bout Northern Exposure is still to come. Keep checking back

Queens of the track

Leeds Roller Dolls’ travel team the Rotten Rollers – 274

Sheffield Steel Rollergirls – 58

Summer Horror Day, August 22nd, Savile’s Hall Leeds Royal Armouries.

Most Valuable Player for LRD: Nuclear Missile
Most valuable player for SSRG: Skate Crasher

Whoop! We debuted our shiny new travel team the Rotten Rollers and scoop our first win while hosting the great Yorkshire public’s first taste of roller derby mayhem. Oh wait – did I say “shiny new” about the Rotten Rollers? I mean, of course, grimy from the grave reanimated undead roller queens of the track.

Our first home bout! It was amazing, a real team effort off and on-track. From the “You touch-a our jammer, we smash-a your face” apple and blackberry jam on our merch tables, through the cool calm mockney cockney hands of our very own Dot Rotten as bout manager, to the bench team of skaters and line up managers. The atmosphere was all warm and cuddly, our Sheffield sistren hopefully made welcome and warming up on track alongside us. Warm and cuddly, yes. Warm and cuddly until one dreadful moment: there the Rotten Rollers were… skating dreamily along to the strains of Cliff Richard’s monster hit, “Summer Holiday”, when oh! terrible! – the record skipped, scratched, metamorphosed into the Misfits’ “Die Die My Darling”. Our summer holiday derby love-in had become a Summer Horror Day: The Rotten Rollers fell flat onto the track. And then slowly, horribly, reanimated. They became the fearsome force that was to go on to dominate the game.

The first half was mainly dominated by the Rotten Rollers. The nerves of the Sheffield ladies showed in the first couple of jams, but their steel shone through and they were soon defiantly holding their own. Leeds’ jammers including Bruise ‘em Banshee and captain Rushin’  Doll proved too nimble for Sheffield to hold back. Gorgon Roller skipped through the pack with her trademark fancy footwork. A Leeds lead grew inexorably.

The game paused for a half time zombie competition, voted for by crowd cheers and won by a very bloody young gent.

In the second period Sheffield had regrouped. Their blockers held firm, and more than one Rotten Roller jammer was downed onto the track as a result. The home crowd cheered wildly as Sheffield rallied. But our unstoppable Vandal Liza roused cheers of her very own as she zoomed through the pack as if they weren’t even there.

That’s not to say that the Sheffield jammers were to be taken lightly. Skate Crasher and captain Rabid Kitten made the Rotten Rollers call on every trick they had in the pack to try to stop them.

We were hungry for our first win (and for brains of course – this was a Horror Day after all) and, as you will know if you’ve ever seen a Romero film, ZOMBIES ALWAYS WIN.

Who will be next and what will be left of them? Oh hello, that would be the Quad Squad in the Northern Expo. Pity them dear reader, the Rotten Rollers cannot rest in peace while other teams still walk the land of the living.

Enormous thanks to Royal Armouries, FAB cafe, Tamsin’s awesome zombie make up, Deep Freeze and Big Cat Merv’s announcements, Eddie and Mr Kalamity for the artworks, KT and Jason for the media and listings help, Disco Dave and all the referees, non skating officials and support staff from Leeds Roller Dolls, Sheffield Steel Rollergirls and our lovely brilliant and shining UK roller derby sistren and brethren*. Lastly thanks to the skaters themselves. Leeds has never seen the like before, but from the crowd reaction they will be queueing around the proverbial block to see the Rotten Rollers again.

Next up:

Northern EXPOsure

Middlesbrough Milk Rollers v Leeds Roller Dolls’ Rotten Rollers v Central City Rollergirls v The Quad Squad

19th September, The Dolphin Centre, Darlington

£free  – email boroskates@hotmail.co.uk for tickets and info

*Sorry I don’t know all the urls for your websites and blogs, please add them as comments below.

Amazing photography from the bout here: http://www.jason-ruffell.co.uk/roller-derby.html

 

Written by Rikkter Scale #21, skater for LRD

LRD – the past year.

LRD have been so busy training, bouting, organising fundraisers etc… that we’ve hardly had time to sleep!

We had a closed bout at the end of November 2008 only not with MMR but with the awesome Auld Reekie Roller Girls (ARRG)! Think it’s fair to say that all Dolls were training hard and awaiting our debut bout with much anticipation and what a bout it was! ARRG started as they meant to go on – focused and hard – and took an immediate lead in the first two jams. That just fired us Dolls into a frenzy and went out in the third jam all guns blazing, ready to show ARRG what we’re really made of! Unfortunately this jam proved fatal for the derby career of our dear co-captain Miss Treats who fell awkwardly and broke both bones in her lower leg – ouch! This pretty much shocked the room and the few family spectators we had. It was touch and go whether we would continue play. Then, truly inspirational, Miss Treats couldn’t believe that we were considering stopping the bout which fuelled us on to go out and bout for her! The first period was cracking, scores pretty close. The second period LRD got even more fired but couldn’t quite take the lead – ARRGs first (but by no means their last) victory!

Apart from the obvious and ensuing post traumatic stress, it was a great day, we all love ARRG and can’t wait to meet them on the track again! Miss Treats however, has decided to hang up her skates for good and we miss her dearly. I believe she’s still our number 1 fan though! Miss Treats – we love you.

We’ve met ARRG a few more times since November last year, mixed practices, scrimmages, GlasVegas bootcamp and had a few gorgeous ARRGs guest skate as Dolls for our debut public bout against the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames in April ‘09 – Lily Lethal, Candy Savage and Crazy Legs – thanks ladies. Wow, another great bout! The Dolls played hard and clean and learnt a lot from the day while the Dames were gracious in their victory against us. We would like to thank all of our fans who were so noisy in their support on the day, wonderful banners, wonderful support and thanks to all those who bought a ton of our brand new, home made merch (wowsers, it’s worth coming to see us bout just to buy some goodies from our merch stand – check out the knickers, cushions and bags galore!). Some of you reading this post will know what a kerfuffle our bout against the Dames caused. Again, thanks for all those who supported us through this weird time and thanks to the brilliant Dames for hosting our first bout and popping our public bout cherry – you’re ACE!

So, we left Brum with a ton of tips of how to move forward. Our training increased immensely, working on close team work, hard drills, endurance and had a little help in hand from Toxic Spice from the States – thanks lady, you ROCK! This was all in preparation for our next public bout against the simply spectacular London Roller Girls B team – Brawl Saints on 6th June ‘09. In between Brum and London bouts our most fantastic league captain and star Jammer Rushin’ Doll was asked to guest skate with the Molls of Glasgow Roller Girls interleague bout – Bonnie and Collide – while the fantastic Nuclear Miss-ile and myself were asked to skate with the Dolls of the same bout! Again, awesome day, cat and mouse playing with the scores all the way through the bout and the Dolls eventually take the winning score; 100 the Dolls, 99 the Molls! Can’t get much closer than that. Thank you so much GRG for the opportunity to skate with you all, we had a ball and love GRG soooooo much

Bonnie and Collide was just a week before Double Trouble where Leeds Dolls took on the Brawl Saints of London. Then, disaster strikes the Dolls again when our beautiful Rushin’ Doll fell during an endurance drill and broke her jaw in 2 places! She’s doing fine by the way, still only eating semi-solid food but should be back on her wheels by August / September time (mind you, if I know Rushin’ like I think I do you can bet yer bottom dollar she’ll be on wheels well before that!). A bit of team bonding was required after that shock and I am still in awe of how us Dolls pulled together and in true Doll form hit London with a revitalised spirit. We fought our little hearts out on the London track, performed so much better than in Brum, really melded as a team and our passion shone throughout the day! We had the most AWESOME time had so much support from the packed out audience and, of course, our captain in the crowd came and gave us support during half time. The London ladies played hard and well, we took their blocks and gave them right back to them…it was a sight to behold. We managed to get 47 jammer points which were well fought for and awarded but, alas, the Brawl Saints took the lead and finished with 156. Don’t let that score reflect on your assumption of the bout in hand, it was hard and the Dolls were stars throughout – I’m so proud of us Dolls -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGSV0TMz80A

Double trouble ended with a second bout, BBDD vs LRG A team and what an amazing show that was. Think all who were there will remember the streaker most but we should not let him take the glory for the day – London Roller Girls…you are rock hard and we love you tons and tons. Would be lovely to see some of you in Leeds sometime for a mixed practice and to get to know y’all better – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS4jrxEX2pU

So, LRD are now looking for their first victory – could it be at Roll Britannia in July one wonders? Ooo, and there’s Nass Fest the week before (11th July) where the Jacofights will take on the BattleAxels. So much derby going on this year but never enough.

Derby love and shoves to all you happy readers and fans and watch this space for our first home public bout coming soon.

Doll-ce Vita #14 proud to be a Leeds Roller Doll

PS You can view many more pics of Dolls in action during all of the above events by logging onto our facebook group.

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