#10yearsofgrd // 11 March 2017

Game poster for our 10th Birthday event.

So, we made it! It has officially been ten years since the first time a group of people led by Mistress Malicious and Teri Toxic skated around Kelvingrove Park as Glasgow Roller Girls, and now here we are (via a rebrand and so many other things to celebrate!).

We wanted to celebrate all of the people that have made us who we are today, so we put a call out for everyone's favourite photos and memories of GRD on social media and we got so many great images! Search #10yearsofgrd on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and you will see everything that's been shared with us. These were all collated into a slideshow which was shown on the day, and we're assured that Puma will turn this into a video and set it to music at some point before our anniversary year is up! So keep an eye out for that, it's going to be great.

There was a vicious inflatable banana attack during the day. Photo courtesy of Ali Maddock.

So: thank you everyone. Whether you've been on our A team, never made a team, officiated for us, volunteered at an event, announced a game, spectated, taken photos, provided medical support or did anything at all for us we want you to know how grateful we are <3

Thanks also go out to all our sponsors over the years, but particularly our current sponsors Euro Hostel, 5th Blocker Skates, S1 Helmets and KT Tape. Without their support, we would really struggle to keep doing what we do on roller skates. So, cheers for that!

For the 10th Birthday celebration itself, we decided to get as many people together as we could who are part of this awesome sport and who have been part of our story. We arranged three games: Rising Stars, Co-Ed and Advanced Women.

To see the programme, go here.

The Rising Stars teams. Image courtesy of Ali Maddock.

First up on the schedule were the Rising Stars, two teams made up of skaters from across Scotland with 0-3 games experience. There's clearly a lot of talent up and coming in Scottish roller derby, so don't be complacent if you're already on a team because these guys were great! The game was pretty close most of the way through, but towards the end Team Black pulled ahead.

Final score: Team Black 180 - 119 Team Yellow

Marshall Lawless sneaks past Optimus Grime in the Co-Ed game. Photo courtesy of Ali Maddock.

The Co-Ed teams were keener on a pun than the newbies, choosing the monikers No Pun InTENdid and The Banana Splits. This was a really tight game with multiple lead changes and very little to choose between the teams, as they were both so strong and showed no sign of tiring! Eventually, after quite the battle, No Pun InTENdid won by a narrow margin.

Final score: No Pun InTENdid 97 - 90 The Banana Splits

The Advanced Women's teams, and the inflatable banana, which got a penalty at some point. Photo courtesy of Ali Maddock.

And, last but far from least, were the Advanced Women. Team Yellow took on the Ten-Ah Ladies who not only kept Puma amused with their excellent name as she made up the programme, but also sent in headshots of them aged 10. These were truly gold, and well worth checking the programme out for (see above).

It's unclear if it was the power of the Pun Gods which spurred the Ten-Ah Ladies on to such a dominant performance given that both teams were fairly evenly mixed, but dominant they were and piled on the points while holding Team Yellow under 100 points despite a valiant fightback.

Final score: Ten-Ah Ladies 255 - 58 Team Yellow

L-R: Venus, Sadie, Chris, Siobhan, Sharizard and Lawless with the picture we got for Chris and the one he made for us! Photo courtesy of Ali Maddock; artwork for Chris by Nuclaire Art.

And as if that wasn't enough awesomeness for one day, we also got a gift for our most loyal fan, Chris. Don't get us wrong, we love all our fans but Chris does have a bit of a special place in our hearts. He is there for us just about every game and draws us wonderful portraits of our skaters so we reciprocated with a portrait of Chris done by Nuclaire Art.

And to round off the day, we had a lovely free skate with music and pals. We had a lovely time and we hope everyone who came along did too.

In the run-up to the event, we were featured in The National and on Commonspace.

And if you're ready for more roller derby, check out our Events Page for what's next in the GRD journey! We also designed some special edition merch for the event which was available on the day, and will be up on the website soooooooon!

Don We Now Our Skate Apparel // 3 Dec 2016

Don We Now Our Skate Apparel event poster.

It seems like a long time ago that we hosted our charity fundraiser game (because it is - Ed.). Who knew that roller derby bloggers hibernated like bears? (that simply isn't true, you've just been distracted by other tasks and pictures of cats. My office, now. - Ed.)

Anyway. Cast your minds back to the start of December, when it was still all horrible and cold outside and it wasn't yet 2017 or even Christmas. Being the big-hearted types that we are, we decided to host a charity game to collect pet food, toys and donations for two well-deserving charities: SSPCA and the Community & Beyond Toy Bank.

Everyone knows who that the SSPCA are those wonderful humans who look after animal welfare in Scotland: rehoming pets, rescuing animals, preventing cruelty and investigating abuse. The Community & Beyond Toy Bank is probably lesser-known, but no less important. They collect toys and distribute them to families across Govan who might otherwise go without.

Santa, the Ref-Deers and some elf helpers! Photo courtesy of Sam Skipsey.

So, on to the roller derby! Our teams had both come up with excellent festive names, with the Naughty List facing up to the Slay Belles. Everyone had a great time, and even the refs were a bit less deadly serious than normal, with Santa hats, elves, reindeer and more! There was even entertainment through the day, with some fabulous dancers and a magician who danced with a table AND I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW HE DID IT.

This guy was absolutely using magic to float this table as he danced, no other explanation for it. Photo courtesy of Sam Skipsey.

It was a hard-fought game but eventually the Naughty List lived up to their name and stole the win from the Slay Belles.

Final score: Naughty List 233 - 129 Slay Belles.

Awards:

Naughty List
Best Blocker: Hardcore Jen 24
Best Jammer: Kami-Tazzy 360
MVP: Haberbashery 40

Slay Belles
Best Blocker: Un-Fairley 27
Best Jammer: Monifa The Bus 253
MVP: Nymphadora Bonks 2

Slay Belles in white, Naughty List in black plus bench staff in a super-dynamic shot, courtesy of Sam Skipsey.

The wonderful Sam Skipsey was on hand with his trusty camera to catch some action from the day, and you can watch it here.

The Magnificent Sevens! 21 Jan 2017

Poster image courtesy of Dave McAleavy boutday.com.

For our first event of 2017, we decided to do something a little bit different so after much thought, we settled on an alternative style derby sevens tournament. Lots of skating and lots of pals, what better way to start the year?!

The standard format of roller derby sevens was the idea of Xavier Bacon and Phoenix InFlames of Essex Men's Roller Derby a couple of years ago now. The aim was to create a faster-paced game similar to rugby sevens: seven skaters per team, a twenty-one minute game and no bench staff, no official reviews, no team time outs and only four penalties to foul out. Xavier has spent the last few years building this form of the game up and it's proved really successful.

For our purposes, we wanted to involve as many people as possible so Cara Viola & Janie Bones made some significant changes to this format: keeping seven skaters per team but reducing to seven minute games enabling us to squeeze more derby into the day. A derby sevens/sur5al mash-up if you will.

All our officials, plus sparkly hats. Image by Dave McAleavy of boutday.com.

With a Wild West theme to the day (and the excellent poster; image courtesy of Dave McAleavy of boutday.com), with some cracking team names and sparkly pink hats(!), we were bound to have a good time. With skaters in mostly co-ed teams from across Scotland, there was bound to be fierce competition and the day didn't disappoint.

After all TWENTY-ONE games were played (poor referees and NSOs; I think our sheriffs and deputies deserve a medal for officiating that many games in one day!), the victors were The Seven Deadly Spins! For anyone who missed out on the day or wants to relive the glory, the wonderful Sam Skipsey was on hand to catch all the action on video here.

The Seven Deadly Spins vs Soy Division. Image courtesy of Dave McAleavy, boutday.com.

And for anyone who wants the lowdown on the numbers, read on for all the gory numerical details!

The final team rankings for the day, showing the winners The Seven Deadly Spins.

The teams who turned up to the ultimate showdown

Schedule & game scores for the day.

Game Report: Dublin A vs Irn Bruisers 5.11.16

It would be safe to say that the Irn Bruisers found their game in Ireland on Saturday challenging. The prediction beforehand was for a Dublin win, and they stamped their mark on the game from the very start.

Devil's Advoskate tricked by a wily Dublin jammer; photo courtesy of Alastair McAleese.

Dublin A established a big lead early on, with the scoreline sitting at 63-0 in their favour early in the first half. Glasgow fought back to stick some points on the board but Dublin certainly didn't make it easy for them, 131-16. The Bruisers struggled onwards for every point, and ended the first half with the score 172-27 to the home team.

With their opponents sitting in a dominant position after the break, it was all uphill in the second half for the Bruisers. They dug in and managed to sneak some more points past Dublin A, but for every point the Bruisers squeezed out of them the Irish skaters piled on even more and early in the second half the scores were 228-49. Despite our skaters' best efforts, the home team pulled further and further ahead and won comfortably.

Sarah McMillan fighting through the Dublin blockers; photo courtesy of Alastair McAleese.

Final score: Dublin A 401 - 75 GRD Irn Bruisers

Irn Bruisers MVP: Lindsey Watson 40

This was the Irn Bruisers last game of the season, and they're now taking a month break from training before getting back on it in December to come back stronger in 2017. Watch this space for more news on planned events for next year.

For your next roller derby fix, why not come along to our Home Teams Final on Saturday? First-time finalists the T-Wrecks will be facing last year's winners the Bad Omens to see who will be crowned champions - go here for more information and to book your tickets!

Game Report: Why So Sirius? at FVRG's Harry Potter Sur5al Tournament

Team Why So Sirius featuring Shona Mercy, Rumbledore, Luna Shovegood, J K Fouling, #Swagrid and GRD's own Lawless, also of 5th Blocker Skates!

Merlin's beard, did you hear about the magnificent Harry Potter Sur5al Tournament that our friends over at Fierce Valley Roller Girls hosted recently? It was a MAGICAL day!

For those who reckon they know the rules of roller derby but are not familiar with this particular format, a Sur5al tournament differs from our standard game in a few significant ways: 

• Each team is made up of five players instead of the usual fourteen. This means every skater is on track for every jam!
• Each team plays every other team taking part in the tournament once for a single jam. There were ten teams taking part in this tournament so it meant we all played nine jams.
• Lead Jammer status can be awarded to the first jammer legally out the pack but they may not call off the jam early, it must run for the full two minutes.
• Teams gain five points for a win, two for a draw, and zero for a loss. It was also possible to gain one additional point for earning Lead Jammer status. 
• If any skaters foul out of the tournament their team continues with as few as four or three skaters, but any less than that and they will be forced to forfeit their remaining games. 
• The team with the most points at the end of the tournament WINS! 

FVRG pulled out all the stops and got the Ministry of Magic involved in their events team to ensure the day went off without a hitch. The witches and wizards of the NSO team were dressed in their Hogwarts House finery with jam timers announcing "Five seconds!" with a swish of their wands. Butterbeer and Polyjuice potion were available at the cake stall and even the vendors got involved with magical artefacts from Notebook as well as FVRG's own Maxx Attack and FunGhoul's (witch)crafty goods. "Sweet quaffle!" I hear you cry. But that wasn't all! There was also some bewitching  ROLLER DERBY to thrill and entertain throughout the afternoon.

Just like a normal quidditch match this was a co-ed tournament and so most teams featured more than one gender - in fact team Why So Sirius? from GRD were the only all female team taking part. Skaters from as many as twelve Scottish teams skated and most gave themselves Potter-tastic names, including Neville Wears Prada, Snitches and Bitches, the Nameless Ones and Snapes on a Plane. Many skaters renamed themselves for the occasion too - personal favourites were Luna Shovegood, J K Fouling, Ron Weavesley, Hustlepuff, and HARMione Grinder! 

But don't let the fun names befuddle you, when the teams got on track the action was as fast as a Firebolt and as hard-hitting as a Hippogriff. Neville Wears Prada took an early lead and remained undefeated throughout the tournament - no Felix Felicis was allowed on the premises, they did this all through pure skill! - and so with the Galleon podium taken care of the hotly contested spots were second and third as the Slytherwins and Golden Snatches battled it out for the Sickle and Knut, each winning seven of their nine jams.

The final scores on the board when all snitches were recaptured. Image courtesy of Sam Skipsey.

Team Why So Sirius came ninth out of ten and had a glorious time playing such fantastic competitors. For three of us this was our first co-ed experience and all had a really great time skating against friends and neighbours from local leagues. No matter what the scores on the board every single team came off track amid masses of high fives and hugs. Not a single Unforgivable Curse was uttered because the level of sportspersonship was so high! 

Individual awards were as follows:

Tournament Best Blocker: Gibb (Bairn City Rollers)
Tournament Best Jammer: Momo (Granite City Brawlers)
Tournament MVP: Kami-Tazzy (Granite City Roller Derby)

We would like to thank FVRG for hosting such a Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tournament and would award them the top grade of O for Outstanding! The organisation on the lead up and the care taken on the day far Exceeded Expectations. We'd also like to thank all the Officials, Ministry of Magic staff, announcers, photographers, and everyone else involved for making it such an enjoyable experience.

Mischief Managed!