Introducing the explosive world of Roller Derby
Now, no peeking please, as I bring someone into the room. This week, I want to introduce you to someone I met recently – an exciting new sport that I think you guys might like.
But let’s keep our eyes closed for a moment longer while we describe this stranger.
This sport is full-contact. If the capricious, continental tikka-takka football which is presently fashionable tastes like a saccharine, tiny-parasol-decorated Appletini cocktail, then this unfamiliar new sport is a straight-forward, no-nonsense shot of Micky Finns; explosive and fun.
Hey, I know you like your old friends. So do I! But don’t you think some have left themselves go a little?
I mean what are they wearing? Let’s look at the All-Ireland champions in... green and gold? Pfft. Or, what’s this, black and amber stripes? Puhlease! No, if you like your sports people sketched in glorious Technicolor, with the drawings often straying outside the lines, then you might prefer our cool new friend.
Okay finally, you still insist you’re not gonna rip up that season ticket. Well just think about your favourite sport, whatever it is – now imagine it on wheels.
I rest my case.
Ladies and gentlemen, please say hello to... Roller Derby. Played by women, it’s one of the fastest growing games in Europe with over 80 leagues sprouting throughout the continent in the last 10 years. This game’s legend has been etched on the Mount Rushmore of extreme sports along with BMX, skateboarding and inline skating.
After a bloated, 1970s incarnation that was more WWF than Torvill and Dean, some tattooed, disaffected young Texas women re-imagined the sport as rough and brash with a trendy rockabilly swagger.
Forget the Barbie-motif roller-skate boots you found under the Christmas tree, girls.
That initial little spark of interest in the Lone Star State sent a wildfire from coast to coast as this new cultural juggernaut inspired books, reality TV shows and the recent Hollywood movie Whip It.
Soon the phenomenon spread to Europe. And now, at last, Mná na hÉireann have strapped on a set of wheels and joined the rest of the globe in the circle. Showtime.
Just three months ago, Rhona Flynn, an ‘out-of-work seamstress’ resolved, with a handful of other local girls, to start a new league on Leeside to match nascent teams in Dublin and Belfast.
The group tacked a few posters on pub walls, logged a new email account and set up a Facebook page for prospective members.
Today, we’re standing in the large gymnasium of Mayfield’s sports centre in the city’s northside.
It’s Sunday lunchtime and two dozen women lap the space as a stopwatch keeps time. The whirr of wheels is punctuated by the odd shriek-and-thud. Just another fall. The Meath-born woman patiently explains the rules to a novice — and people’s reaction to the crazy hobby.
“The big questions tend to be: ‘what’s the point of it? How do you score points? Why is there no ball?’ You tend to leave out the words full-contact when describing it to family. But people kind of get it pretty quickly. I’ve heard people describe it as rugby on roller skates if that helps people get a picture. But it’s quite an American sport as well – there’s a lot of fun and music and parting around it too. It’s great craic,” she says.
In a game, five girls line up in each team at the beginning of the 60-minute proceedings. Points are scored by one member on each team ‘the jammer’ — the other four help her to get around the track to score and stop the opposition’s jammer from circumnavigating the arena.
A missionary from Ireland’s skating Mecca, Christine Allen is presently undertaking technical instruction with her new team-mates.The Ballybunion native forged her impressive skills in the kitsch hot-house of the town’s famous roller-disco. “Most of the population of Ballybunion would know the basic skills of skating. A regular summer job could involve skating up the town. So I used to do a lot of skating, which is why I can’t swim – I spent too much time on skates,” she says.
“So the disco closed down and I hadn’t skated in about 10 years but my boyfriend bought me a pair of skates a couple of Christmases ago. And then I heard that this crowd had started up again and I was off.”
Twins Bernadette and Maria Wills free wheeled onto the scene from a skateboarding and snowboarding background. Finishing each other’s sentences, they explain that the Rebel County Rollers are a broad church. “We’re all coming from different backgrounds – some people have never been on skates before while others are very sporty but not necessarily on wheels,” says Maria. “People just think it’s a load of girls on roller skates bashing the crap out of each other – it’s much more that.”
Bernadette adds: “But it is tough – and it’s endurance too – after a two-hour session here you’d be sweating buckets. It’s a serious game but there’s probably a stigma attached to it. When you think roller skates you think childhood and you think fun — but it is hard core.”
Tough, fun and confident – I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
