Skater of the Month: Sarah McMillan #7

Sarah McMillan ready to go on the jam line. Image courtesy of John Hesse.

This month we would like to dedicate our Skater of the Month award to Sarah McMillan #7.

Sarah joined Glasgow Roller Girls in 2008 as a new skater, number x7x. She progressed through the league and showed us how it’s done many times as x7x, before she transitioned to the name we all know and love her under: McMillan #7. Somewhere in that time, we also followed suit and changed our name to Glasgow Roller Derby (always a trendsetter, that woman).

Long term teammate and friend, Lindsay “Haberbashery” Watson, said:

“Even before joining GRD I had the pleasure of skating on track with Sarah. My third game ever was against Glasgow when I skated for Auld Reekie Roller Girls at Roll Britannia and Sarah was not only an amazing opponent, she was also always really nice.

When I transferred to Glasgow I was really nervous but she made me feel so welcome. We have become good pals on and off track and she has always been there for me at difficult times in my life and I am so lucky to count her as a friend.

On track she pushes me as a teammate (GRD and Soy Division), makes sure I never give up but also that I acknowledge my successes.”

Taking a whip, back in the early days of GRG. Image courtesy of Wullie Marr Photography.

Sarah is a wonderful influence both on and off track; perhaps one of our favourite of her achievements outside derby is her daughter Amy who draws the most excellent pictures of her dancing.

Some fabulous artwork, courtesy of Amy.

Sarah has had a massive influence on many skaters, leagues and nations in the roller derby world. We’re pretty sure her modest nature will mean she doesn’t believe us or skims over this bit looking a bit embarrassed, but we’ll continue to tell you just how much impact she’s had in her career.

In 2014 she made the roster for Team Ireland and competed at the Roller Derby World Cup, which involved playing against many of her GRD teammates on Team Scotland! We were extremely proud of her for this achievement, as were Team Ireland themselves:

Team Ireland, ready for the Roller Derby World Cup 2014. Photo by: http://www.roller-derby-on-film.co.uk/

Agony (Ann Prendeville-Burgess) said:

"Being on Team Ireland with Sarah was an absolute pleasure . Sarah has this natural way about her that makes you feel like family. I hadn’t met her before Team Ireland but had heard many positive things about her, which she lived up to. She could see when stress levels were rising and would face them with a smile and a rational word, allowing everyone to feel heard and move on. There’s so many good things I could say about Sarah, it’s safe to say I think she's bleedin' deadly."

Now in 2017 we’re gutted to announce that Sarah is retiring from roller derby; her last game for Glasgow Roller Derby was at the West Track Story tournament in Nantes. We’ve been absolutely unable to put into words how much Sarah has given to us as a league, we will miss her more than any words we can ever write can express.

Sarah: we will miss you, your frank way of speaking and the passion you bring to Glasgow Roller Derby, we hope that you’ll return again one day. Don’t be a stranger.

Love all of us,

Glasgow Roller Derby x

Image courtesy of Tsunami.

#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!