I’m still here! Just been doing SO MANY derby things all my free time has been spent sleeping and doing my actual day job (booo). But stand by for the most enormous of updates!
• WAY back in November, Petra, HellCat, Conway and I went to BERLIN to a bootcamp with the gorgeous Berlin Bombshells. I learnt how to hockey stop, and promptly forgot/couldn’t do it on our home floor. Whilst in Berlin, we stayed in Isy’s friend’s awesome converted warehouse, visited Master Blaster’s Skate shop and stroked Marylin Monroe’s furry eyebrows in Roses Bar.
Drying out our pads at the venue…
• January saw the arrival of more brand new Fresh Meat – and their subsequent graduation in March, complete with donkey and jockey costumes… I am now both scared and impressed at the rate with which our new rookies are rocketing through minimum skills. In the absolute best way, I feel like I need to up my own game if I want to keep my place on the team, eek!
• At the end of January, five of us went to BRUGES for Derby Revolution. It was a non-stop skills-fest with coaches like Suzy Hotrod, Sarah Hipel and Mickispeedia (omg!). Amazing classes, sticky as hell concrete floor (with drains and holes to make it more exciting) and a whole ton of amazing skaters. I learnt what happens when you belly flop on concrete (ow), and that ‘intermediate’ means a lot of different things – but most importantly, that over 20 hours of skating in two days is just about the best thing ever. Doubly good as a way of breaking in new skates. This post is so late in the making that they’re actually doing their Summer Revolution RIGHT NOW, and I am incredibly sad not to be there…
That time we met Suzy Hotrod…
Copyright Ian Roofthooft 2014
• April was a particularly exciting month – Bath Roller Derby Girls went to PORTUGAL where we played Lisbon Grrrls in our very first public game. Ranked, with the brand new rule set and a proper crowd – it was such a fun game! The final score was 151-132 to Bath, which shot us into the European rankings at 260. Here are some clips from the game, as featured on Portugese youth show ‘Outdoors’:
You can also hear us on BBC Radio Bristol here:
• Following our public debut we’ve bouted a few more times, both publicly and closed. South Wales has a delicious little cluster of roller derby teams who’ve been great fun to play, and following some hard-fought games with both Portsmouth and Swansea Bs we bounced out – and back in – to the rankings, now sitting at a stable 269.
• Fundraisers have been at an all time high, with pub quizzes, car boot sales, clothes swaps and film screenings, including a showing of Murderdrome (complete with zombie usherettes) and a Fresh Meat film by our very own Trevlock Holmes.
Zombie Usherettes!
• May brought us the South Coast Roll, where lots of us enjoyed a day’s skate around Goodwood Motor Circuit. S’Mac Down Angel skated a marathon, just for funsies…
• And most recently, we’ve been getting our bootcamp on again! As well as attending Tiger Bay Brawlers’ excellent Double Threat Tour in Newport, we’ve had an introduction to reffing with Sleaze and Rollin’ Rat, and guest coaching from Team USA’s Juke Boxx…
Double Threat Tour with Tiger Bay Brawlers. Photo: Sam Bolderson
Team Sleaze! Photo: Daisy Offer
Rookie – and not-so-rookie zebras. A terrifying herd – pretty sure there were more refs than players!
It’s been a hell of a year so far, but no resting just yet – the end of this Summer will bring with it special event… stay tuned for details!
Oh, and here’s the treat I promised for reading all the way down. A positively adorable comic from my most favourite comic writer just now, Lucy Knisley.
I wanna be a rollergirl 