Scottish Roller Derby Blog (Posts about all-gender roller derby)

Mean City face the Lothians, twice, 16th June.

aoanla — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:00:49 GMT

This weekend, there's yet more Roller Derby action in Glasgow, as Mean City Roller Derby, the city's open gender league, takes on two opponents at once.

Livingston + West Lothian's New Town Roller Girls, who have been pretty busy this year already, travelling up to Inverness to play ICRD in April. NTRG have been building up to this next bout with an open scrimmage against The World last month, and with one of their skaters having visited Rimini, Italy's Stray Beez in the last month, we assume that New Town will be buzzing with confidence on track.

NTRG will be taking on Mean City's WFTDA-gender-policy team ("Mean City Women"). The Mean City team have had a quieter year, last facing Lothian Derby Dolls towards the end of 2017, so it will be interesting to see how things have changed on track in the past 6 months...

Flat Track Stats predicts a close game, with the median result being a 19:21 points ratio in favour of the home team; with scores that close, however, it could be just a single power jam which decides the result!

In the second game, Fear & Lothian, the Midlothian-based open gender team, will face Mean City's open gender team. Fear & Lothian have had a less busy year to date than NTRG, with their last game in November 2017. Since then, however, the team have been holding regular scrims with their WFTDA-gender colleagues in Lothian Derby Dolls, and have undergone a round of recruitment. We may even see some new faces on track this Saturday!

Mean City's Open Gender team have regularly faced F&L - one of the limitations of open gender derby is still the paucity of opponents - and the two teams know each other well.

Mean City overall has also had a new intake at the start of the year - and there's some changes in both rosters, to judge from their series of roster photos being run over on their Facebook page.

Mean City President, Gord'n'Thorg told us:

"Glasgow's first - and meanest - Open To All Roller Derby league return to The Arc at Glasgow Caledonian University this Saturday 16th of June. After a false start ("yielding!") earlier in the year; we're getting back to the track with a Double Header against two of our friendly, neighbouring leagues.

We start with a WFTDA-flavoured face-off between the home side and Livingston's New Town Roller Girls. Members of both teams have had a tasty sample of each other at a few recent scrims. We're looking forward to getting a proper look at each other across league lines. I don't think anyone would be adverse to the idea of another semi-local rivalry getting up and rolling...

On the subject of rivalries; we're following this with open-gender action, as Fear and Lothian array themselves against us once again. Our contests have been fierce in the past, and we'll be looking for more of the same as we field some new faces against familiar foes...

If you can't believe that all of this can be yours and only lighten your purse by £5.00, we'll also be giving you your first chance to lay hands on our latest batch of Mean City Merchandise. You'll wonder how you've managed without it!

Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Well, weather permitting..."

You can see both games on the 16th June, from 12:15 at the ARC Sports Centre in Glasgow Caledonian University.

Tickets: £5.00. Under-14s free when accompanied by a paying adult.

Mean City Roller Derby: Relaunch 2017

meancityrollerderby — Wed, 17 May 2017 14:08:10 GMT

Roller derby is a very DIY sport, so people at different levels will always be looking to achieve different goals within the sport. For some, their purpose is to advance as far as their body will allow. For others, it’s a great way to get out a couple of nights per week and let off some steam in a fun, friendly environment.

Mean City Roller Derby fall somewhere in the middle, as we're made up of a wide variety of different people and personalities – we have actors, students, scientists and even a Thai masseur! It's our members that make our league special. Although we have lives outside of derby, we'll always be there for each other, both on and off the track.

This year we're looking to continue to build upon progress we've made as a league and as a group of friends. Next Saturday, 20th May 2017, will be our first bout of the year and we are hoping to capitalise on the hard work we've put into our training. Not only that, we are rebranding and will be debuting our new logo and team tops for the first time!

The logo really captures the good humour of the league and the spirit of Glasgow, Mean City's home and stomping ground. We don't want to give too much away until game day, but we can say the logo is indeed still purple! This has been a long time in the making, but we can proudly say it looks fantastic. A big thank you to our Design Team and to Roller Derby City for our awesome new uniforms.

We are facing tough opposition. Our ladies' team are playing the Granite City Fight Hawks from Aberdeen. We played them up north in October 2016 and were narrowly defeated, so we will be looking to make the most of the home advantage! Our co-ed/open team will then be playing the Portsmouth Scurvy Wenches who are travelling up to Glasgow for the bout. They are more unknown to us, so should make exciting opponents. We also hear they like a good after party, as do we!

The action starts at 12pm at the ARC: Health & Fitness, Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA. Entry is £5 per person/under 14s free,

Tickets available from the Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1288036437909237/

A Brutal kind of Derby: Chilean Men's short-derby tournament.

aoanla — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 15:04:50 GMT

A lot of exciting things happen in Roller Derby without getting the attention they deserve.

One of these has been the Torneo Brutal, a unique short-format-derby tournament which has been held by the Chilean leagues for the last few years.

We talked to organiser Lola Paranoia about the genesis of the tournament, and the currently completed Third Edition of it.

"In August 2015 was the first edition of the Torneo Brutal. The idea was copied from a similar tournament in Argentina, where a friend participated and told us the experience. At that time, we had little competition in the country, few leagues, so the format of the tournament seemed perfect."

Looking for a host, Vina del Mar's men's league - Tacones Bandidos - were most excited and agreed to be hosts for the first ever Torneo Brutal , and the two sequels so far!

Along the way, Lola's artist friend Picota, and Rambla and Mr. Sokram, joined the project as organisers.

The format is similar to the European "Derby Sevens", with 6-skater teams (plus a bench) playing 30 minute games, otherwise according to WFTDA/MRDA Rules. Like many Sevens tournaments, the teams are CoEd/Open-To-All (or "Roller Derby mixto"), which is also a more popular approach in Latin America in general, and are essentially "exhibition teams" created for each edition.

The third edition of the Tournament sees 11 teams compete in a single-elimination bracket, which is easily managed with the smaller format games.

The Teams - Zicod'lia, La Mafia Del Sur, Virutas, Mujeros, Emoticon Team, Cosmopolitan, Team Sexy, Cousins Power, Chalabota, Malbec Madness, and Jurassic Quad - draw skaters from across Chile, as well as across the border from Mendoza, Argentina.

An intense tournament resulted in a win for Emoticon Team over Viruta, with a narrow 119-94 scoreline, with Viruta finishing the 30 minutes with only 2 players on track. (The reduced starting roster means that Torneo Brutal does not have a minimum-roster to continue competing after injury or foul-outs.) The exciting footage is available here, via Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/709201495857174/videos/1126079294169390/

With this edition of the tournament complete, the intent is definitely there for a 4th edition - possibly incorporating elements from other short-format roller derby around the world. We'll keep you informed about details as they emerge!

The Torneo Brutal Trophy - the "Trofeo Brutal" - made by Picota and other artists

2016 in Review

aoanla — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:21:53 GMT

Whilst on a general level, 2016 has been labelled a bad year (perhaps unfairly - it's been a mixed bag, it's just that the negatives have been big and prominent, and the positives less so), for Roller Derby, in Scotland and World wide, it's been pretty good.

We're capping off the year by talking about the things that happened in the past 12 months, first in Scotland (page 1) and secondly across the World (page 2), before rounding up our hopes for 2017 (page 3).

Scotland

Scottish Roller Derby continued to Grow: several new leagues popped up, which we recently brought to you [Inverclyde Roller Derby, Orkney ViQueens, West Lothian Roller Derby, Glasgow Men's Roller Derby and Resistance Roller Derby] and others continued to grow. Ayrshire Roller Derby had their first public bout (against Lothian Derby Dolls) as did Granite City Brawlers and GMRD, and Helgin Roller Derby and the renewed Fair City Rollers have scheduled their (joint) first bout for next year (if we were to bet, we'd expect Doonhame Roller Derby to be the next to be bout-ready). Scotland's only bouting junior derby team, Fierce Valley Roller Cubs, also played their first ever interleague bout, against a mixed team from Sheffield and Newcastle. Even the larger leagues continued to expand, with Auld Reekie Roller Girls' ASTROs founded this year, and taking the number of ARRG travel teams to 3. As our Auld Reekie review shows, the whole league had a pretty good year, with the All-Stars qualifying for WFTDA Division 2 playoffs (after an impressive performance at The Big O in the USA), and sensibly declining in favour of working on longer term goals.

Further north, both Dundee Roller Girls and Granite City Roller Derby had very good years as well. Both leagues' A-teams performed impressively in their Divisions at British Champs (Granite City qualifying for promotion to Tier 3 from Tier 4, and Dundee just missing out on the promotion to Tier 2 at the Tier-3 playoffs). Whilst Dundee has withdrawn from Champs to focus on their national and international game (especially after playing their first international away, in Tenerife, just scant weeks ago), Granite City will indeed be in Tier 3 of Champs next year, alongside Auld Reekie's Reserves! The two leagues' B-teams also had very good years, with Dundee's Bonnie Colliders winning basically every bout they played until ARRG's ASTROs late in the year, and GCRD's Fight Hawks playing three times as much derby as they did in 2015.

In the Central Belt, Bairn City Rollers' Skelpies managed a few bouts, despite many of them also making Power of Scotland, which prevented them taking fixtures in the first half of the year!. Alongside GMRD, they'll be joining the British Champs Men's T3 in 2017, and we expect good things of them. Meanwhile, BCR's Central Belters continued their own upward rise in the rankings - a win against the newly-reformed Furness Firecrackers sealing that trend for the year, and setting the Belters the challenge of maintaining expectations in 2017 (the problem with upward growth is that people start expecting it to never stop!). The open-gender Belter Skelpers had a much quieter year, taking on just Mean City's coed-team and then hosting Granite City Brawlers and friends for BCR's 4th Anniversary event.

Speaking of Mean City, they were also extremely busy this year, hosting a vast range of events, including double-headers supporting Power of Scotland. With the growth of coed leagues in Scotland (several of our newer non-bouting leagues are open), hopefully Mean City will have an even busier year next year!

Of course, the Scottish Men's National Team, Power of Scotland also had a very big year, representing well at the Men's Roller Derby World Cup in Calgary, placing a creditable 10th, just below the tournament's surprise unseeded upset of Mexico. Several members of the 2016 team are also now involved with Team Scotland Roller Derby, who will be hoping (along with PoS) to represent the nation strongly in 2018.

That's not to say that there weren't some wobbles in Scottish Derby: due to an unfortunate series of retirements, Glasgow Roller Derby has spent the season with a very different roster to 2015, resulting in the 2015 British Champs Champions placing near the bottom of the Premier Division in 2016. They'll be aiming to pull back their WFTDA ranking position over 2017... although they've retired from British Champs to focus their team on this goal. Similarly, a series of transfers and other movements lead to Fierce Valley Roller Girls performing less well than they would have liked in the Champs Tier 3, resulting in potential relegation to Tier 4 in 2017. (Despite this, both FVRG and GRD have been drivers of many Scottish events in the past year - Fierce Valley hosting a pair of massive Sur5al tournaments and hosting an international against Zurich, and Glasgow hosting Charity events and playing all over Europe themselves, as well as hosting Berlin, and playing a big part in Vagine Regime UK.)

Another growing trend in Scotland (and the UK) this year was "cherry popper" or "rookie" bouts, with almost every league in Scotland hosting at least one such event this year, including Livingston's New Town Roller Girls .

But we shouldn't just talk about the Leagues themselves. Scottish Referees and NSOs also continued to represent at the highest levels of the sport, with Dundee's Righteous Oxide particularly visible at international level events like MRDWC and ; but many other referees like , and NSOs (many of whom were nominated in the TDTM Listener awards) travelled huge distances and devoted much time to supporting the sport. Scottish photographers were also supporting international events this year, with Dave McAleavy and Laura MacDonald being both ubiquitous at Scottish games, but also travelling to Tenerife in Dave's case, and to the Men's World Cup in Laura's. (As the two are, between them, the photographers for the two national teams, we expect even more travel in their future.) Our Announcers didn't do too badly either, with Helliverence near-ubiquitous across UK events, Bairn City's man of many names Graeme "Archie" McPhail supporting MEC [and announcing two tournaments in Scotland without a break in each], MRDWC media director Chasing Katy appearing at several events, but especially MEC, and Granite City's sMACklemore doing both MEC and Track Head Announcing at MRDWC itself. The latter two also helped to push on the Scottish contributions to Roller Derby media, with the Talk Derby To Me podcast [also hosted by King Crazy] going from strength to strength over the year (especially with their excellent coverage of tournament-level events), culminating in a rather huge Listener Awards.

(For us at the Scottish Roller Derby Blog, it's also been a good year - we've expanded our coverage again, introduced our own rankings, and even managed to expand into some new fields of video and audio interviews. We also covered the Men's Roller Derby World Cup in more depth than we have any previous event. In order to handle this, we launched our own annex to the blog, which hosts links to content which doesn't work well with Wordpress. We also managed to hit more then 1500 likes on our Facebook page just a few days ago, which was our own goal for 2016!)

Back to Scotland (page 1) , forward to "The Future" (page 3).

UK and Europe

Obviously one of the most exciting developments of 2016 was the announcement of so much International Derby coming to Europe in the next two years. Both World Cups will be in Europe - the Men's in Barcelona and the Women's in Greater Manchester - in 2018; but before that, one MRDA playoff and the Championship itself will be in Europe as well. With so many Europe-wide international tournaments already happening in Europe (ERDT, The Road to..., SKOD, MEC, European Smackdown and so on... with Newcastle's EuroClash joining the set in 2017), this was almost inevitable at some point, but no-one expected everything but WFTDA to happen at once.

Another positive development in the UK was the coming together of Coaches at the Derby Stance Coaching Summit (followed by the Summit at the Ramps, which brought together skaters from multiple disciplines) organised by Rule 56 and the Female Coaching Network. We're very much in favour of people working together to progress the community...

...which is also why we were cheered by the announcement very recently that Leeds Roller Derby had formed from fusion of Hot Wheel and Leeds Roller Dolls. We'd love to report on more "collaborations" rather than the politics which leads to splits in Roller Derby, and hope this can be a trend for 2017.

Finally, Roller Derby media also had some growth in the UK as well, with two new podcasts - Hell Yeah! Roller Derby [Croydon and elsewhere] and the Good Arrows Podcast [Nottingham Roller Derby] both launching this year, with good content already!

International

Internationally, the most exciting places for Roller Derby are always where growth and development is still raring ahead.

So, in East Asia, the Japan Open Tournament was possibly the most significant event of the year - the first ever international tournament in the region, hosted in Okinawa and with attendees from the Pacific Region, Australiasia and beyond (Alaska and Copenhagen!). We're very excited to see what the sequel (now managed directly by a consortium of the Japanese leagues) tournament - the Tomodachi in March 2017 - manages.

Also in East Asia, after literally years of development, the first ever public bout in China happened, with Beijing Roller Derby hosting a mixed team from the rest of the Asian leagues. This was also a great example of the still-political purpose of Roller Derby, as the event was in promotion of the UN HeForShe project.

Growth has also continued in other regions, with Latin America now hosting a huge number of teams (although their terminology for leagues and teams differs from the USA and Europe), including 3 now in WFTDA (as full members, with more Apprentices). Across Europe and the Middle East, increasing number of countries are growing not just one, but multiple teams - and in the more established countries we've seen huge growth in national level tournaments (the French Nationale is a mighty thing), and other regular events (for ex. the Finnish Pohjola Cup now trans-national as it includes Russia's White Night Furies this year).

In terms of National Teams representation, 2016 has seen continued growth in both the Men's and Women's parts of the sport - MRDWC 2016 saw a massive surge in teams attending, filling out Europe and Latin America [Colombia having a last-minute technical hitch which prevented this being even more impressive]; and there are already at least 5 new Nations for the 2018 Roller Derby World Cup in Manchester.

Finally, we were very pleased that WFTDA has started adopting positive policies such as releasing the (alpha) of their new bout stats management tool, bouttime, as an open-source project, truly for the community.

And International Derby Media has also continued to grow, with the startling appearance of The Derby Apex earlier this year, and their meteoric rise to popularity. We're sure we'll see more good things from them in 2017 and beyond. (Derby Central, of course, continued to do great work, covering all of the international things above, and many more.)

Back to Scotland (page 1) and back to the World (page 2).

The Future

So, what would we like to see in 2017?

National Teams leveraging PR to promote growth in their "home" nations.

Whilst Teams Korea, Philippines and West Indies are all representing their nations, none of them have any leagues in those nations to draw skaters from. With all three declaring their intent to use their existence to promote the sport, we'd love to see this bear fruit. (Korea has a league, but like most leagues in East Asia [except Kamikaze Badass in Tokyo, and Tokyo Roller Girls' Neon Roller Monsters team] it is almost entirely composed of non-nationals.)

The Derby Apex's "Stat Rataissance" actually happening.

One of The Apex's high points of the year has been the improved availability of stats for WFTDA bouts, alongside the promotion of bouttime. We're a little more skeptical of this as a global phenomenon - Roller Derby is not just WFTDA teams [in fact, they're still a minority, especially if you include the fact that only A teams count for WFTDA member leagues], and stats availability for the sport as a whole is still relatively poor, despite the best efforts of Flat Track Stats and others. We'd like to see this happen, though, and still have some hope. (Our own effort in this regard - the SRD Rank rating system - is still very much dependant on FTS's own records, which are themselves dependant on both the site's few volunteers and the Roller Derby community itself.)

Increased openness, transparency and collaboration.

One reason why stats are an issue feeds into this next wish: Roller Derby still has problems with openness and transparency. The bouttime release was definitely a positive step from WFTDA, but we think that most Derby bodies (international and national) could improve on their transparency (the MRDA gets points for having a public forum!) and communication. Alongside this, we'd also like to see positive elements of collaboration continue to grow - more things like Derby Stance, more mergers of leagues to make stronger bodies, and generally more "derby spirit".

A WFTDA Playoff outside North America (and a non-US team winning Champs).

As The Apex noted, WFTDA is now the only major entity with "international" contests not to have some component held outside North America. It would be great to see some movement on this, especially with the increasing number of ranked European teams at D2 and even D1 level. (We'd also love to see a non-US team win the WFTDA Championships - Victorian have come ever so close twice now [and they've beaten Rose on neutral ground this year], so 2017 could still be it.)

But what would you like to see in 2017 - from us, or from Roller Derby? Let us know via our Facebook page, Twitter or just email (scottishrollerderbyATgmailDOTcom)!

Are you ready for a skating spooktacular?

muir74 — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 15:36:32 GMT

Tricks or treats? Why choose when you can have both – and a whole lot more – at Mean City’s closing home game of the year?

Glasgow’s only coed league will be hosting a devilish double dunt of derby delights on Saturday 29 October at the Dear Mean Place – aka the ARC Sportscentre in Glasgow.

Hallowe'en is when things go bump in the night - HallowMean is when things go bump on the track and there are trick and treats for everyone.

First up, the Mean City ladies – fresh from a gallus bout against Granite’s Fight Hawks and looking to maintain their forward momentum.

The Meanies have been reaping the benefits of a greater emphasis on tactics, fitness and skills – with fresh recruits bolstering the settled squad.

Their opponents on 29 October will be the out-of-this-world ASTROs (Auld Reekie All Star Rookies). It’s going to be a stern test of the Mean City ladies’ resolve, as well as a showcase for some of Scotland’s finest up and coming skaters.

The second game will see Mean City's coed team ghosting to the track to take on Bairn City Rollers' Belter Skelpers.

Tis the season to be fearful and while there’s no fear among the Mean City ranks, there will be some trepidation given the excellent form the Belter Skelpers have been in.

Bairn City Rollers’ coed team recently played a mix of Aberdeen and Dundee skaters – the Brawler Buddies – and really brought their A game, winning with a well-oiled performance combining offence, defence and excellent tactics.

Mean City’s coed team may lack the experience of their opponents, but they have spirit, guts and tenacity in abundance and will match them skate for skate.

Mean City President Elaine Hunter – aka Roller Dobby - said: “We can’t wait to round off our home season in style with a spook-tacular thriller for all the family.

“Trick or treat – why choose when you can have both? There will be skating, fun, cakes and cracking tunes – what else are Saturdays made for?

“Tickets are just £4 in advance – that’s just £2 per game – or £5 on the door. It’s a bargain and you’ll be supporting grassroots sport at the same time. Under-14s get in free.”

Mean City presents HallowMean - Saturday 29 October 2016 - doors open at the ARC Sportscentre at noon
For more information on the event – click here
For tickets – click here

Bairn City's co-ed bout to celebrate their 4th birthday

despicablev — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 19:38:53 GMT

Bairn City Rollers became Scotland's first co-ed league back in 2012. Now as they approach their 4th birthday they are kicking of celebrations and ending their 2016 season in the best way they could, a co-ed game. Their opponents will be the Brawler Buddies, who are made up of skaters from Granite City Brawlers, Granite City Roller Derby and Dundee Roller Girls.

In change from the norm, there will be no advanced ticket sales for this event. Instead in celebration of their 4th birthday BCR are inviting spectators to pay what they want on the day. That's right, just turn up on the game and pay whatever you like.

The game will take place at Grangemouth Sports Complex on Saturday the 15th of October, doors will be open from 2.15pm and first whistle will be at 2.40pm, for more information visit the event page here

Science v Magic: Twice in one month!

aoanla — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 11:15:40 GMT

We've previously mentioned that Glasgow Roller Derby are hosting an exhibition double header on the 20th of the this month, featuring a Science v Fantasy themed B-feature.

However, if you like the idea of pitting SF against F, then you don't even have to wait that long, as Glasgow's only Coed league, Mean City Roller Derby, are holding their own coed extravaganza this weekend (13th August, 2pm) as the Wizards take on Gallifrey's finest Timelords. This is an opportunity to see both established MCRD skaters, as well as their newest up-and-coming skaters in one place.

Just one of four (4!) posters that Mean City produced for the event!

The event will be at Mean City's usual venue, the ARC Sports Centre in Glasgow, with afterparty at Rufus T Firefly. (Links above link to maps.)

Advance warning also: the following week (2oth August) features a bit of a clash. As well as the aforementioned Soy Division v Vagine Regime/Science v Fantasy double header in Glasgow, there will also be a Fierce Valley Roller Girls / Bairn City Rollers joint double header in Grangemouth! As the second bout in the schedule features the long anticipated rematch of Bairn City's Skelpies against Tyne and Fear B (the Inglorious B**stards), it seems that both events have unmissable second fixtures...

It's possible, based on the preliminary timings, to just about see the first bout in Glasgow, and then rush across Scotland by car to get to Grangemouth in time for both bouts, but we're not sure we'd risk it...

[The approximate timings are:

First bout (Science v Fantasy) at Glasgow, skateouts start 13:05 (implies end around 14:30)

Second bout (Soy Division/Vagine Regime) ends 17:10? (which implies a 15:45 start, or earlier depending on slack?).

First bout at Grangemouth (FVRG intraleague) starts 15:30

Second bout (Bairn City Rollers' Skelpies v Tyne and Fear B) starts 17:20.

It takes around 40 minutes to get from the centre of Glasgow to the centre of Grangemouth, so it should, hypothetically, be possible to see all of the mixed bout at Glasgow, jump in a car, and arrive about 20 minutes before the first game starts in Grangemouth. Assuming that derby runs to time, which is, of course, not something we can ever rely on, and that our guesses about the timings are correct... ]