handing them out to refs, bout staff and particularly hungry-looking skaters. (This keeps happening. Every game. Ap-parently I don’t understand pattern recognition either.)

How much track tape (in inches or centimetres) gets used up in an average dou-ble header? Oh gosh, no one told me these questions would involve maths! I really have no idea. I try to look busy when they’re laying the track. But I do know we tend to go through about two rolls of tape every training, so I’m going to take a guess at ‘lots and lots’. If you happen to own a tape company, please sponsor us!

What’s your proudest mo-ment in your roller derby career to date? My proudest NSO moment is easy. It was in March, being Head NSO for a triple header of Metal Legs, Team Whatever and Team No Fuss, organising an entire crew that I’d never met be-fore. Long day! My proudest on track moment is harder. I’m still pretty pleased with myself whenever I finish a jam without any major mistakes. But I was awarded Best Blocker when the Rockerbillies played the Southampton City Rollers and that was just awesome.

As the Rockers Head NSO who is more scared of you, the players or the refs? I don’t think any of them are particularly scared of me. Per-haps I need to try harder? If I have to choose, probably the skaters. The last few games they’ve brought drinks for the NSOs; I like to think I played a part in instilling them with that sense of healthy respect!

And vice versa, which of the two groups are you most scared of? I don’t think there’s a safe answer to that question! As HNSO, I’m not scared of anyone; my clipboard gives me the strength of ten because my heart is pure. However, I also skate for the B-team, and for that role I’m definitely more scared of the skaters. All the refs can do is send me to the box, whereas my teammates can leave me with bruises!

Which is more important to NSOing, Haribo or cup-cakes, and why? This ques-tion feels particularly tailored to me. In the Rockers it’s defi-nitely cupcakes. Mostly be-cause I love to bake them and use them to ensure the loyalty of my lovely NSO crew. And because apparently I don’t un-derstand moderation, I always bake far too many and end up

BAKE OFFICIALThis Rockerbillies blocker is also the

queen of clipboards and cupcakes. Turn Left takes a glimpse into

the secretive world of NSOing and comes out covered in icing.

HIPPY HIPPY SKATEROCKERS HEAD NSO

EDITED, DESIGNED AND WHATEVERED BY ADAM PETERS. ALL PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN HESSE EXCEPT CAEN PIC ON PAGE 11 BY DENNIS PEETERS AND ICELAND BACKGROUND PAGES 12-13 BY ANDRÉS NIETO PORRAS. THANKS TO ALL OUR LOVELY INTERVIEWEES. PLEASE SUPPORT ALL OUR AWESOMES ADVERTISERS – WITHOUT THEM THIS MAGAZINE SIMPLY WOULDN’T EXIST.

Hello, bonjour and hallo (even super rubbish Little Englanders like BRATS can pronounce the Flemish for ‘hello’). When the Rockers quit British Champs to “concentrate on games against European sides” some thought that was shorthand for “we’re sick of losing and want to find someone, somewhere, anywhere who we can actually beat”.

Today’s games against Gent GO-GO and the Switchblade Roller Grrrls of Lille demonstrate that isn’t the case. These are both rematches of away trips Brighton class in the top three best hosted and most fun they’ve ever had. A glance at rankings shows Brighton are serious underdogs in both bouts. Well, so much for wanting easier games than the Champs ones – GO ROCKERS!

PS Regular readers might spot that we have redesigned the mag a bit. This is in order to create a new end-user focused aesthetic that is set within a fluid, content-rich, responsive design experience. In other words, our computer broke and this one has different fonts on.

After ten months away from the Rockers then a cameo against LRR in August, the feisty

triple threat plays in both games today. So how much has the team

changed in her absence?

YOU DID WHAT? “I broke a fourteen year old girl’s nose,” repeats Sham, pausing briefly before hurriedly adding, “not on purpose of course, and I had no idea she was that young.”

We’re hiding in a corner of Hove’s Wick Inn. Sham recently began sharing a flat with Wick manager Gin Atomic and derby ref Noise Tank. She’s supposed to be at home on cleaning duty right now, but instead she has snuck out to give Turn Left an exclusive interview about her time away from Brighton (trav-elling in the Antipodes and Far East) and is trying not to let Gin spot her. We can’t let this casually thrown child-breaking anecdote lie, so we turn on our recorder and delve deeper...

This was on your travels? Yes. I was in Cairns, Australia. I asked the local league if I could come along to training and they invited me to guest coach them. They looked up the Rockers and myself on-line, heard good things about me from the league in Darwin, so they said to come along to their next session to coach and scrimmage with them.

They had a player called ZumeMinx taking part. I just thought she was small. Here at Brighton we have a lot of small players, so I didn’t think twice. I just assumed she was 18, 19 or whatever. I went to can-open her [a derby move where a player drops low then pops up their shoulder into an opponent]. I’m usually one of the smallest players on track, so when I go to can-open some-one it’s fine, but when that per-son is a foot shorter than you... and your shoulder smashes into their nose... and breaks it... it’s not the best.

She goes down crying, blood everywhere, then her mum comes running up. That’s when I learned that not only is

she just 14, but she’s also the star jammer for junior Team Australia. There are photos of her in magazines advertising the sport to Aussie youngsters, and I’ve just broken her face! Fair play though; she got up, cleaned it up and carried on. I think I did something else to another player that session too. The league did invite me along to their game the follow-ing week, but I wasn’t allowed to coach them again!

How long were you away from the Rockers? For ten months. I left Brighton last October and came back three weeks before the LRR game in August. As it was a team we know well and we were short of players I played in that one. It was hard work. Although my brain knew what I wanted to do, my body didn’t: “I want to be over there... oh, too late.”

Have the Rockers changed much while you were away? They’ve dropped a bit in the rankings – is that because you weren’t playing? Nooooo. I think we’ve got amazing new players and we’re really trying to close the gap between top and bottom. It’s been a year of change with some notable absences and departures, plus strong players like Gin and Swann arriving. I think the Rockers have still been doing well, we’ve just been hiding it!

You personally only got to sample British Champs briefly in that LRR game. The Rockers won’t be tak-ing part in the 2016 tour-nament. Why is that? The thing with Champs is that be-cause of the regional structure you’re playing teams local to you. These are generally teams you’ve played before and could play any time you wanted. Lo-cal teams play a similar style

SHAMBOLIC #360

SHAMAZING JOURNEY

as you influence each other through regularly playing, scrimming and guesting, so Brighton are influenced by Croydon, Eastbourne, LRR etc. Without Champs we’re a lot more flexible about where and when we play, so we can go up against teams and styles we haven’t encountered before.

The Rockers AllStars beat today’s opponents Gent 169-140 in Belgium, but that was a long time ago (March 2012). What do you remember of that game? It was physically tough. Very tough. We’ve been working hard on our walls for the re-match, preparing for the worst. They were also the first team we played that had completely matching kit, including hel-mets. This meant we could only identify players by their socks, which we soon realised was a really amazing tactic. It meant we couldn’t recognise anyone from jam to jam, hence I can’t give you the names of any Gent players we’ll be looking out for this time. They’re all fierce!

Today’s other game is also a rematch of sorts. A mixed level Rockers team lost 136-171 to Switchblade in Lille last summer. We didn’t really know what level they were at, since it’s difficult to rate a team you’ve never seen. I’m not sure how the sides will match up in this game, although Switchb-lade are much higher ranked. I’ll be jamming a bit in this one. Appearing in both of today’s games should be interesting...

The A-team are taking part in a tournament in Caen, Normandy on Feb 20th/21st alongside the hosts and teams from Brussels, Paris, Copenhagen and Eindhoven. Do different countries play different styles of derby? To some extent, yes. I mentioned how our style of play is influ-enced by other teams nearby. When I was in Australia I played with Cairns, Darwin and Brisbane and I noticed that

some things we consider as a basic tactic they’d never come across. With the smaller more remote teams (such as Alice Springs, who have four skat-ers and are a ten hour drive from the closest other league!) that’s even more pronounced. I don’t know what to expect from European sides we’ve never played before. I guess it depends where they get their coaching from; how much they are influenced by American tactics or their own local and national styles. We’re going to prepare for every eventuality.

Now the Rockers are in the WFTDA [derby governing body] Apprentice Program, presumably games against European WFTDA teams are a good step towards full membership? Absolutely. It also opens up other opportu-nities for us. Playing the Caen tournament will hopefully see us make connections with more leagues outside the UK, which should lead to us being invited to more continental tournaments and so on. We have found recently that a lot of WFTDA leagues only want to play other WFTDA sides, so by not being part of that we have missed out on a lot of opportu-nities that will now open up.

Gent is a case in point. They were already WFTDA members when we played them three and a half years ago. At the time we didn’t really appreci-ate how much WFTDA mem-bership was worth, but when you look at the calibre of teams and tournaments that they have played and hosted since then, you realise how much of a big deal it is.

Are there any particular Brighton players to look out for today? Being away for ten months I’ve really noticed how far some of the people I’ve seen go through Fresh Meat have come on. Some of the stuff that Obliviator is doing now... at training she absolutely killed me! Lab Wrath and Van Hayley on the B-team really impress

me, to the extent that I asked them to stop blocking me so hard as it was starting to annoy me! On the A-team, Irish Mist is definitely one to keep an eye on, particularly her arse.

Was it difficult coming back to training after nearly a year away? The physical side wasn’t so bad, but obviously it’s going to take time to get back to where I was. The sum-mer break plus people being off with coughs and colds has meant training wise it’s taken longer than I expected. It’s great that we have so many more people now, with a proper B-team setup and a huge bunch of rookies. Not just in terms of skating, but that there are more people to help out with running the league and all the various committees etc. The more people we have the faster we improve at every level.

How would you like to see things develop in 2016? And how much do the Rock-ers miss Bash? I’d like to see us close the gap between our higher and lower level skat-ers and play more continental games. Personally, I’d like to get back to the level I was pre-viously at, then start improving from there. While we’ve lost Bash, we’ve gained skaters of a similar stance and strength. I think it’s more that she was such a figurehead for us, so we’re having to adapt to that and remember we are a team and derby’s never about one person. And hopefully she’ll be back once she gets sick of how cold and wet New Zealand is!

Pip and Alba are excited. It’s Salty Cove Water Sports Day and they set off with Skipper to the beach where people are encouraged to try out new sports on the water. Skipper’s having none of it – the only thing he’ll be found on at sea is a boat, and those aren’t al-lowed in the buoy marked area during today’s event. Pip and Alba convince Auntie Twitcher to try surfing with them.

Clad in life jackets, they all love it. Twitcher turns out to be a natural (she’s a secret sporting genius!) riding the waves, doing elaborate spins and stunts around Pip and Alba as they more sedately surf back into shore. At an excited Twitcher’s insistence, they go further out from the beach each time. By the fourth time, they are right out on the edge by the buoys. The trio stand on their surfboards ready to ride the waves back in, and... noth-ing. The wind and tides have dropped away, and the water is totally still. Hmmm. With the sea flat as a pancake every-one else is back on the distant beach.

They could paddle back, but it would take a long time. May-be someone back on the beach can help them. They try waving and though Hopper sees them he thinks they’re just waving and happily waves back. Jone-sy the seal pops up to say hello. They ask him to fetch help but he officiously points out that if boats aren’t allowed further into the area marked with buoys, seals probably aren’t either. Oh dear. Twitcher as-sures them the tide will pick up again soon but Pip and Alba

are getting hungry. Pip surveys their predicament through his scopey-eye. He realises that if Jonesy can’t go inland for help, maybe he can find them assist-ance from further out to sea. Like from... ah... Puffin Island? Jonesy sets off there and re-turns with a plethora of Puffins who use their combined puff (and wing flaps) to blow the surfboarders back to the beach thingy.

This new puffin-powered wa-ter sport (puffboarding) even appeals to Skipper, and soon all the Salty Covians are hav-ing a go. The Puffins end up puffed out! A pigeon arrives at the lighthouse. There’s a (pictogram) message tied to its leg from one of Uncle Skip-per’s friends from up country. Skipper draws a reply and the pigeon sets off again. Pip and Alba are fascinated by this, and Skipper explains that in the old days that’s how people sent messages to each other – by carrier pigeon. Pip and Alba resolve to do the same. They don’t have a pigeon, but they do have a friendly seagull! Hop-per agrees, a tad reluctantly, to be their ‘carrier seagull’.

Pip and Alba send each other ‘postcards’ from various Salty Cove locations. Hopper hops/flies between them with the ‘post’. Other Salty Covians see this and think it’s a splendid idea. They ask Hopper to carry messages too. Pip realises it’s taking Hopper longer than expected to bring him a mes-sage from Alba. He finds her and she hasn’t received his last message either. Pip (using his scopey-eye) and Alba search around town for Hopper. They ask people and the last time anyone saw him is when they gave him a message to deliver. Pip realises that with all those messages Hopper must have

been run off his foot or what-ever.

Where would he go to relax? A-ha! They find him on a deck-chair on the beach. Not only is he tired from all the rushing around, but he has so much ‘mail’ attagched to his ankle he can’t even hop any more, let alone fly. As Hopper relaxes, Pip and Alba deliver his post around Salty Cove. They enjoy it and end by delivering their messages to each other. Both of their final pictogram mes-sages had suggested to the other that Hopper was looking rather tired!

Professor Evie arrives at the lighthouse. It’s low tide and she’s taking Pip and Alba on a beachcombing expedition at the foot of the cliffs. After they leave, Hopper and Pasty decide they want to go on an expedi-tion too. With a bit of nagging, Skipper agrees to go with them to explore the Clifftop Woods. After collecting fun items on the beach, Pip and Alba discov-er a ravine in the cliffs. Mean-while, Hopper and Pasty have called Skipper over to a ravine/cliff path they’ve found of their own, dropping down with high steep sides. Pip shouts hello and gets a hello back. Ooh, she says. Whatever.

Hopper shouts hello and gets one back too. Ooh. They both think there’s a creature in the ravine replying to them. Evie and Pasty point out to Pip/Hop-per respectively that it’s just an echo. They are initially dis-appointed. Then Alba decides to try something and shouts “one” into the cave. The crea-ture replies “two”. Pip shouts “three”. The cave creature shouts “four”. Cut to Hopper and Skipper on the cliff also shouting numbers into their cave (they’re shouting even numbers and get the next odd one in reply). Both parties re-alise this is no echo and so on hello yes please!

The two groups reassemble at the lighthouse and are both excited about their discover-ies, even more so when they re-alise they’ve both found places

AN HEADLINE THINGYWe talk to so and so about something or other blurb blurb goes here...

PLAYER NAME GOES HEREWe talk to so and so about well something or other blurb yeah...

roller derby scene in Belgium has definitely grown. There are many more teams now, and not only female teams. Gent have a male team and so does Brus-sels. There are junior leagues as well now, and of course the national team.

How much has your team changed since the 2012 game? Will you have many skaters that played then with you for this rematch? Our league certainly has changed a lot in the last three years. We have a strong core in our travel team (our A-team) that were there in 2012 and are still with us now, but players come and players go. Some have left the A-team, others have joined and overall our league now has many more skaters than three years ago. We’ve trained hard, gained more experiences and changed some of our strate-gies. I mentioned that there is now a national roller derby team in Belgium – almost half of that team is A-team players from GO-GO Gent.

Can you tell us a little of the history of Gent GO-GO Roll-er Girls? GO-GO have existed now for a little over six years. There are still a few people with us who started back then, but the league – being the first roller derby league in Belgium – has grown and developed a lot since then. The skaters who started out had never seen roll-er derby before. The first time they encountered the sport was when they played it them-selves (but they had a very good teacher from the States). Now we have a very effective Fresh Meat program that de-livers well trained skaters and we are growing year by year.

GO-GO’s annual tournament ‘SKOD – A Skate Odyssey’ is well known throughout European derby. How im-portant is it for you to host such a big tournament? SKOD is the highlight of our year, so yes it’s very important. We’ve been organizing it for a few years now and this year we won our own tournament for the first time – the feeling was overwhelming! Next year the tournament is on the 6th to 8th of May and it has been official-ly recognised by WFTDA for the first time. SKOD is one of only two WFTDA tournaments taking place outside the USA in the first half of next year!

What’s the roller derby scene in Belgium like these days? Great. Antwerp derby league One Love have been running their own tournament for a few years now, in which they take on other Benelux leagues. We won that tourna-ment three years ago and now our B-team takes part in it. The

Can you tell us a little of the history of your league? Roller Derby Lille was born in 2011 when roller derby was almost unknown in France. The league has since grown much bigger than its founders could ever have expected. We now have an A- and a B-team (Switchblade Roller Grrrls and Baronnes Von Schlass), a men’s team (Barbiers de Sévices), a junior section (Kinderby) and a skating class.

Lille itself has two leagues, yourselves and Lille Roll-er Girls. What’s the derby scene like elsewhere in your area? The links between all the leagues in North East France and Belgium are quite strong. We are quite close to one an-other, which indeed helps, but there’s also a nice true derby spirit at work. Teams help one another, ref or NSO for one an-other, and often play fun scrim-mages or Sur5al together.

Switchblade played against a mixed Rockers side in Lille in June of last year. What do you remember of that game? Sweat, fun, pain and a very good spirited opposition!

The day’s other game sees the Brighton A-team v GO-GO Gent. Do you know much about the Belgian side? We very much admire GO-GO, who at the very beginning of our league was a great inspiration to our founders. A very athletic yet very fun team.

Do you know much about Brighton itself and do you have any plans for stuff to see and do? Brighton deserves more time than we have, so we just plan on raiding the shops on Sunday. You can probably meet us at Primark or Sains-burys, buying scones.

Do you have a message for any Lille fans in the crowd today? Thank you for coming!

We catch up with Brighton’s opponents to learna bit more about the French and Belgian sides.

GENT GO-GO ROLLER GIRLS

ROLLER DERBY LILLE

From Ghent, BelgiumRank: 28th in Europe (652.9)Brighton are 49th on 610.4Flattrackstats.com predicts77% chance of a GO-GO winscore differential of 48:35suggests a 240-175 away win

From Lille, FranceRank: 109th on 535.3 ptsRockerbilliesare 311th on446.2 points FTS: 94% chance of Lille win

score differential of 59:27suggests a 236-108 away win

AWAY TODAY

Turn Left meets up with the duo for an hour to talk about reffing in Europe. After editing out any potentially libellous tales of other refs passed out in hedges, this is what is left...

There are lots of stereotypes about different countries when it comes to football. Is the same true of roller derby? Noise Tank: Funnily enough, for a nation that has such a reputation for flair in football, Team Brazil at the first Roller Derby World Cup in 2011 were diving left, right and centre. To be fair, they were one of the lowest ranked teams, had only played togeth-er once before the tournament and were very new to the sport. I was there and I was cheering for them, but yeah, every time they got knocked down, they’d be like holding their face and pointing at the ref and the player who’d hit them. I was thinking: it’s a full contact sport, that’s what happens in roller derby, get over it. I guess that’s just part of the learning curve for countries and teams that are new to the sport.

LaserHammer: This isn’t so much about the playing side, but the whole culture of roller derby in Spain is quite – for want of a better word – ‘dra-matic’. The crowds are really up for it in the way Spanish football crowds are. You get the impression that if they were al-lowed to bring smoke bombs, fireworks and flares into the sports hall and let them off, they would. When I’ve reffed games over there you’ll often see half of the crowd with vu-vuzelas and bongos and stuff. The moment a jam ends there’s this cacophony of noise. One of the teams is trying to ask me for an official review, but all I can hear is the ‘vvvuurrr’ of dozens of vuvuzelas. It’s crazy!

NT: Yeah, when I think of the differences between roller derby in different countries it’s the crowds that I think of. You actually see in certain places in the UK where roller derby is fairly new that the crowd will be starting to boo opponents. The announcers will have to come on the mic and explain that’s not what this sport is about, but it’s people in the crowd that don’t really know derby but are used to other sports – particularly football – and are reacting in the same way. You don’t boo the other team as a roller derby fan, you just cheer a lot quieter for them than you do for your own team!

LH: The good bits of football style support that have trans-ferred over to roller derby are great though. No-one sings or chants much at UK derby games, but if you go to a game in France you’ll hear a lot of singing. The annual tourna-ment in Caen, which Brighton are taking part in this February, is great for chanting crowds.

So you wouldn’t say any Eu-ropean nation is more pen-alty heavy than another? No. As far as penalties go, I think a lot of it is down to the qual-ity and quantity of referees that leagues have access to at training. They need the refs at training to pick up on the hits that aren’t legal and so on.

The thing about Europe is refs are spread out. Some plac-es have a lot, but elsewhere there aren’t many close enough to any particular league to be able to train with them. I’ve been told there are only 40 roll-

ROCKERS REFEREES NOISE TANK AND LASERHAMMER

ZEBRAS ROAM FREE

er derby referees in the whole of Spain, for example. There’s about that in Sussex!

Is one reason why there aren’t national ‘styles’ the fact that most European sides will play teams from other countries more often than domestic opponents? Absolutely. You can see it when people make online requests for officials for European games. So many different nationalities of volunteers come forward. You’ve got some regions that share officials as a matter of course, like the Nordic nations, say, or Belgium with Holland and France. I think the travel links once you’re on the conti-nent are so much better – there isn’t that barrier, that sea that surrounds the UK – so there is more of a trans-European vibe to events. I do wonder, though, if it’s not just the more well known and established teams in each country that are at that cross-border level. Maybe the newer or smaller teams are still having to focus mostly on domestic opposition?

You mentioned the Caen tournament the Rockers will be playing in. How impor-tant is playing events like that? Super important. You get to play several games over a weekend. Some are teams on the same level as you, whereas some are stronger or weaker. I played for Southern Discomfort in the Mens Europeans. We’d come up against a strong team like Toulouse, then play a weak team like... I can’t think of the name of a weak team now...

Portsmouth Scurvy Dogs? [Noise transferred to Port-smouth earlier this year.]

Shut your mouth. What I’m saying is, we played Toulouse and did really well, then tried to play the same game against a weaker team, and what worked against the strong team with the strong walls is actually resulting in us picking up loads of penalties against the weaker one who aren’t as resilient to the hits. So tour-naments are great for testing yourself against varied levels of opposition; for adjusting your play on the fly depending

on who you’re up against next. Taking part in the Caen tournie will be of great benefit to the Rockers, I’m sure.

I think the two-day tourna-ments that are popular in Eu-rope are good for the players, since they’re big events to focus on and prepare for, but with only a commitment to that one weekend. When you compare that to, say, British Champs which involves a team committing to games on given dates across most of a year, you can understand why some people might prefer the week-end tournies. Both models have their plusses and minuses, but you can understand why the Rockers – at this precise point in their development – have chosen to concentrate on Euro-pean games and tournaments, rather than being part of a year-long domestic league.

Looking towards today’s games, Brighton edged past Gent three and a half years ago. What’s going to happen today? You can’t re-ally predict anything based on that game in Belgium, since it was so long ago. A month is a long time in derby, let alone 45 months! That game was actu-ally only the second open door away game in the Rockers’ his-tory, and I think it was only the second or third home game for Gent too, so this rematch should be awesome. GO-GO are a strong side. They were strong in 2012 and they’re much much stronger now. Brighton are on the way back up, after a bit of a dip, so it should be a great game to watch.

Gent haven’t come over here because they want a rematch to prove a point; they’ve come over because they think it will be a fun trip and a good game to play. It’s not like they’re thinking “we’re amazing, but there’s this one team that beat us back in the day, let’s go over there and **** them up!” Hav-ing said all of that, I haven’t seen how they’re going to play yet, so maybe after the game I might think differently!

I can’t give a prediction as I’m a ref so officially impartial.

Sometimes myself and Noise might chat about how we think a game is going to go, but we don’t tell anyone else. We defi-nitely don’t put money on it.

That’s actually the number one no-no from WFTDA.

Don’t bet on a game that you’re refereeing.

There was a WFTDA Offici-ating Clinic in, as it happens, Gent many years back. A load of top American refs came over to school European refs in pro-tocol. The main things they told us not to do when reffing were: (a) don’t wear your stripes to the after party, get drunk and throw up on the buffet; (b) don’t snog any of the players on track at the final whistle, and (c) don’t bet on the game.

All sensible rules, to be fair.

We’ve mentioned the Caen tournie and the Rockerbil-lies are taking on a side from Lille today... France is amazing for roller derby. The leagues over there really look after people, both the teams and officials. The Rockers who went over to Lille last summer were wined and dined and es-corted everywhere by mem-bers of the home team. I reffed the Caen tournament this year and there was a separate room with a huge free buffet for all the teams and officials.

European teams have that stuff sorted. When I reffed in Gent I got my own fruit basket, a pair of socks...

Did they give anyone else socks or just you?

...keychains, stickers and other stuff. What do refs get in the UK – a bottle of water?

And a stiff handshake.If we’re lucky.

We’re out of questions. Any-thing to add? Just that the Rockers could do with a few more refs, particularly females. The new Fresh Meat intake can include refs as well as players, so please contact the league.

Reffing’s great. Plus there’s free water and handshakes!

SO HOW MUCH DO YOU *REALLY* KNOW ABOUT THE ROCKERS? FIND OUT IN OUR UNBELIEVABLE FESTIVE QUIZ

1. Which A-teamer is nicknamed The Electric Teapot and why?

2. What is the punishment forarriving at A-team training without a gumshield, and why does it no longer involve a cardboard cutout of U2’s Bono?

3. If all the teammates’ body parts Shambolic has damaged in training were collected together by Dr Frankenstein, how many new skaters could be made with them?

4. Why is Brighton Rockers head ref LaserHammer banned for life from Stockport Hat Museum?

5. Which B-team duo are such regular visitors to the penalty box that they are known as TheChair Bear Bunch?

6. How many times in total has Derby McGee been on the Rockers Bioengineering Committee?

7. Which character from Pixar’s Toy Story 3 does Skate Bush keep being mistaken for by drunken seven year olds?

8. What’s the strangest thing the Rockers have found when breaking down the hall after an open door game, and how did it lead to Cake Or Death’s arrest?

9. If all the times Irish Mist has fallen over in practice in 2015 were laid end to end, which planet in our solar system would they stretch to?

10. Which of Polly Dartin’s helmet stickers was recently valued at over £20,000 by Sotheby’s, and which Bulgarian trombonist is thought to have been its previous owner?

11. How many times per day (on average) does Rose Bleed use the word ‘onomatopoeia’?

12. Which American derby star’s face does ref Noise Tank have tattooed on his left buttock?

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

Have Gent ever made a hu-man pyramid? Can you beat five tiers? We sure have. Let’s show you at the after party.

Do you call penalties in Eng-lish or French? All European games are called in English, regardless of native language. It’s not always easy for players as some haven’t mastered the language. For the referees it’s great as it means you can work with anyone in Europe. For us from the Nord region that’s re-ally nice, as we are pretty close to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. (Pretty close as in less than two hours ride.) Sometimes we translate some calls for fun, but never during games. As for the ruleset, some extremely devoted referees, especially the Belgian Agatha Power, have dutifully translated every new version. The French translation was the first to be WFTDA approved, yet the calls are still in English.

Do you have any tactics with a ridiculous name that is fun to shout out in the mid-dle of a jam? ‘Rainy’... that is when we want men to fall from the sky. We also have a ‘Kiwi’.

Do you have a player that is always falling over nothing, like Brighton’s hilarious Irish Mist? We have one that has trouble with shoelaces. They seem to untie every time she looks at them, especially when she is jamming.

What is the best thing that has happened at an after party? We hope we haven’t seen the best yet ;)

What is it that you are most proud of as a derby player? Team work – it always makes the dream work.

How did you get into roller derby? Desperately in need of a hobby, derby rolled along.

DERBY Q&ACake Or Death and Hippy Hippy Skate came up with a few questions for us to ask today’s visitors.

LADY VERMASSACRE & PILIE BILLIE OF GENT GO-GO

REFEREE NELLIE R OLESON OF ROLLER DERBY LILLE

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Want to see more Rockers flavoured Euroderby? Make a note in your diaries. On the 20th/21st February the Rockers AllStars will be taking part in Slip It! III in Caen, Normandy. The Sussex stars will play three games across the weekend and the other teams taking part are hosts The Leopard Avengersplus the Paris Rollergirls B-team, BrusselsDerby Pixies, Rock City Rollers (Eindhoven)and Copenhagen Roller Derby. There are threeferries a day between Portsmouth andCaen and hotel rooms are super cheap that time of year (£25-£30 per night)so we hope to see plenty ofBrighton derby fans there!

As the Rockerbillies play only their second home open door game,

we catch up with their captain for the inside line on away adventures in Iceland, Eastbourne and darkest Hampshire.

SHE’S A BUSY BEE is Irish Mist. Like most derbyers, life is a whirlwind of work and train-ing. The only time we can pin her down for an interview is as she races between the two on a bicycle weighed down with kit.

We’re chatting in The Admi-ral, which under its previous name The Cornerstone was the Rockers’ official home pub. Two refurbishments and changes of management and name later, there are now no signs of the derby posters and merch that used to bedeck these walls.

It’s not just the closure of the Rockers warehouse in Shore-ham (at the start of 2014) that has set the league on a more nomadic path. Whilst training is now spread across three dif-ferent sites (the Moulsecoomb, Southwick and King Alfred lei-sure centres) after parties and socials are even more widely dispersed. Yet the actual league structure has more stability to it these days, largely due to the establishment of a permanent B-team, which Mist captains.

September saw the Brighton Rockers B-team Rockerbil-lies take on Southampton City Rollers in Hampshire. Were you expecting such a big win (365-106) there? No way. We’d just added a lot of freshies into Thursday night training and thought it would be a good experience for them to take part in the game. Pri-marily, we wanted to see how they coped with the experience of playing in front of a crowd, so we didn’t go into it with any high expectations results wise. Although this was Southamp-ton’s first public home game, they had been building up to it for two years. I’ve only been skating for two years myself.

They have also had a few transfers and coaching from Portsmouth Roller Wenches, so we really didn’t know what to

expect. We just wanted to have fun. The game was RuPaul’s Drag Race themed, so how could we not have fun?

What was the difference be-tween the sides? They picked up a lot more penalties than we did. It was noticeable that we’d often have a full pack lining up against two or three South-ampton blockers. I also think they tired quicker than we did. We scrim every single week in training, in order to build up the stamina and intensity that’s needed for games, so maybe that was a factor? We held it all together really well.

Is one reason that the big win over Southampton came as a surprise the fact that your most recent open door games (outdoors at East-bourne Extreme in July) had been three losses, some of them by quite a big margin? Yeah. Prior to the summer we didn’t really have a B-team. Skaters not in the A-team would play in mixed league games and were very much in the minority. Now that’s com-pletely flipped with a lot more B-team and rookie skaters in the Rockers ranks. Extreme was a real eye-opener.

We pulled in a lot of skat-ers straight out of Fresh Meat, people who had only passed their Minimum Skills a week or two earlier, and we threw them into this all-day tournament on concrete against established teams. We just didn’t have the fitness to play three games in the heat. We changed a handful of skaters for the SCR game, but mostly it was the same players from Extreme. Playing a single game indoors was a hugely different proposition.

Most recently – just two weeks ago, in fact – the Rockerbillies played a game

IRISH MIST #177

IRISH MIST OVER ICE

in Reykjavik, Iceland. That’s around 2,000km away, eas-ily the furthest any Rock-ers team has travelled for a game (Glasgow at 620km comes second). Our oppo-nents, Roller Derby Iceland’s Ragnarök, are the only team in the whole country! They’ve been around for a few years. Although they haven’t played many games, being so isolated from other leagues, their loca-tion mid-Atlantic means a lot of American guest coaches visit them. Several of the NSOs at our game had flown over from the States. Although many were there because Airwaves music festival was the same weekend, we got the impres-sion it was totally normal to have officials over from the States at their games.

Were you expecting to win or lose heading into a game against (essentially) the Ice-landic national side? They’re going to hate me for saying this, but... We had a lot of different people playing and there were only nine of us. I went into it saying we’d won just by turn-ing up. For nine people to take on an established team like that was always going to be tough, so we did treat it as a bit of a jolly. Tactics wise it was com-pletely new. We didn’t have the same packs available as we did in Southampton. Our attitude was to keep strong walls and give Ragnarök a good game, the best game we could.

The final score was 171-129 to the hosts, but Brighton were in the lead for much of the game. Yeah, we were up at half-time. There were a few lead changes, but even at the end we had a chaseable score.

Was playing with nine play-ers against a full fourteen an issue towards the end of the game? It always is in those sit-uations. Everyone was playing at least two jams in a row. Van Hayley played four in a row at one stage. With fewer players you also pick up more penalties

and unfortunately Chaka Car-nage fouled out of the game. It wasn’t just physically tir-ing, it was mentally tiring too. Since the line-ups were new, we all had to think and work a lot harder as we weren’t that used to playing alongside each other. We also had a different bench team to normal in Rose Bleed and Racey. They did an amazing job, but again it was slightly different communica-tion to what we were used to. It was an odd situation with all the changes, so I think we did really well. I’d love to play Ice-land again as they’re a really great strong team – we’ll have to invite them over.

Did you get to see much of Iceland itself? Presum-ably you don’t fly a 4,000km round trip to only see the in-side of a sports hall? Myself and Chloe Colossus couldn’t get the time off work so we only flew out the evening be-fore the game. The rest of the team flew over on Wednesday or Thursday and they did the Golden Circle tour [waterfalls, geysers, the world’s oldest Par-liament, etc]. They also tried to see the Northern Lights but weather prevented it.

Ironically I got to see them on the flight over. It was also the day that Tuborg released their Christmas beer so we got free bottles of it on the plane. I was sitting there drinking beer and staring out of the window at the Northern Lights. That was amazing. I saw a bit of Reykjavik itself and we all went to the Blue Lagoon on Sunday before flying back, which was also amazing. Most of Satur-day was spent in the sports hall and hospital, though.

Regarding the hospital, we heard about Chloe Colos-sus’ injury. Was it the same shoulder she dislocated at Eastbourne Extreme? Yes, the exact same injury. It’s one of those things. She’d made a great recovery, she was doing all the exercises to the letter, and we kept her off training

and scrimming until she was ready to come back. It was just unfortunate that she got the exact same hit and fell on it in the same way. It’s so frustrat-ing that she’s back to square one, but we’re just going to build her up to be this little tank, this little She-Hulk on the track with bulging arm mus-cles. She’s going to be our little mascot for the Lille game.

Speaking of today’s game, the ’billies take on Roller Derby Lille’s Switchblade Roller Grrrls. Do you know much about that side? You played in the game over in France last summer, yeah? That was my first game ever. I just got punched. I was so na-ive, I was all: “So what happens in a game? I don’t know.” I had Racey trying to babysit me on track as I just got hit. They’re such a good league and so well established. It will be a tough game. We have mostly the same squad we had at Southampton and Shambolic will be joining us in a jamming capacity.

I won’t make any predictions as it all depends on perform-ances on the day. I’ve managed to give myself a sugar crash right before a game once, total-ly went to pieces and couldn’t do anything on track, so now I don’t dare to predict anything. It really helps that we’ve got a strong B-team core now that we can bring additions around. We will comport ourselves with grace and dignity. I’ll even try to get the captain’s ‘C’ drawn on my arm the right way round, unlike at a recent closed door in Eastbourne (thanks Cake!).

Today’s hosts hopefully need no introduction. How has this year been for them? “Very busy,” Dr Whooligan tells us. “We started by celebrating our fifth birth-day on Valentine’s Day, before taking part in the inaugural British Championships. This year we focused on resurrect-ing our B-team, thus the awe-some Rockerbillies were born, as well as growing the league by graduating a fantastic (and the biggest yet!) Fresh Meat group. Moving forward, we will be concentrating on European games, such as today’s dou-ble header, going through the WFTDA Apprentice Program, and welcoming our Fresh Meat Class of 2016 (hopefully even bigger than this year’s!). Our new skater intake begins on 17th January with two taster days beforehand. If you’re in-terested, get in touch via info@brightonrockers.com.”

Brighton’s truly gender inclu-sive derby league (Europe’s first) recently celebrated their first birthday. Their new T-shirt range is proving a hit with der-by fans around the world, and the Brawlers have co-trained with a number of other local leagues, including the Brighton Rockers rookies. “The Brawl-ers have taken on some new Fresh Meat recently and we love them!” founder Finn the Human tells us. “We’ve also re-ceived funding to help develop our league for our members. We’re looking next year to have our first scrimmages and to continue to support Trans Pride! You can find out more at facebook/btownbrawlers.”

SUSSEX DERBYVERSENeed any more evidence for the oft spoken claim that “roller derby is the world’s fastest growing sport”? Did you know there are now a whopping SIX derby leagues just in Sussex? Here’s the latest news from all of them...

BRIGHTON ROCKERS

The second of the four leagues that make up Eastbourne Roller Derby to be formed, this men’s league is still fairly new, but is growing all the time. “2015 has been the Bomb S’Quad’s first competitive year playing as a team,” confirms Pont Blank, “which included a number of closed door scrimmages and two open door bouts, against our friends Surrey Jammer-wockies (at Eastbourne Ex-treme) and Suffolk Mens Roller Derby. Now under the inclusive umbrella of Eastbourne Roller Derby, we’re looking to build on our first year as a team, and are looking to plan more open door bouts in the coming months. Watch this space.”

Eastbourne’s well established women’s league sits in 48th place in the UKRDA rankings. Whilst that’s technically bot-tom, the vast majority of UK leagues (at least two thirds) aren’t even members yet. “The Bombshells learned a lot from playing in British Champs this year,” says The Philosofear, “and so over the past month (after finishing our Champs season) we have been working on some new wall formations and offence strategies. We’ve had some great guest coaches who have taught us some new moves! We have signed up to take part in British Champs 2016, but as yet we don’t know which teams we’ll be playing or when our games will be. We’ve been arranging a few closed door games for the winter and early spring in order to pre-pare ourselves for next year’s Champs games.”

B-TOWN BRAWLERS

BOURNE BOMBSHELLS

BOMB S QUAD,

The latest addition to the East-bourne derby party is this new co-ed side made up of Bomb-shells and Bomb S’Quadders. Tenacious P gives us the low-down on the A-Bombs: “After their debut against the tough as nails Portsmouth Scurvy Wenches at Eastbourne Ex-treme this year, the A-Bombs followed that up with an equal-ly tough game against Suffolk Roller Derby a few weeks back. It’s all quiet now for the A-Bombs until February when we take on My Mom Roller Derby from Wales, before entering a four team competition hosted by Full Metal Roller Derby in March. Oh and there’s the small matter of Eastbourne Extreme 2016 just around the corner, so all in all a busy year is looming for the fledgling co-ed team.” Check out facebook/eastbournerollerderby for the latest from all their teams.

Junior derby (designed for 9-17 year olds and usually co-ed) is relatively new to these shores, but Sussex has a league! “The New Bournes are coming along strong,” coach Beachy Head-case tell us. “We have one main training session on a Tuesday evening in Hastings aimed at all levels of junior skater. We usually have a good turnout at practice of ten skaters or more which means scrimmaging is happening regularly. Seven of our skaters are going to be tak-ing part in Swansea City Roll-ers’ Bout Against Cancer event being held on 12th December in Neath, where a junior game is featuring for the first time. The kids can’t wait!”

THE A-BOMBS

NEW BOURNES