A Scottish Scrimmage

Some news from the North, care of Glasgow Rollergirls' Miss Troublegum ...

Scottish Mixed Scrimmage – Sunday 6 December @ The ARC


After watching so many new derby teams popping up around Scotland it was great to have finally managed to gather the clans together and get a good old friendly mixed scrimmage on the go.

Today we had girls from The Auld Reekie Roller Girls (Edinburgh), The Dundee Destroyers (Dundee), The Perth Roller Girls (Perth), The Granite City Roller Girls (Aberdeen) and of course the hosts for the day, Glasgow Roller Girls.

There was also a ref training session to introduce fresh meat into the zebra world and allow them to discuss derby rules, helping them stay one step ahead of all the spills and thrills on track.

We only had access to half of the hall in the Arc Sports Centre for the first part of the three-hour session but this didn't stop the girls piling on track to get a good warm-up skate and some endurance drills done. As is usual with derby, the injuries came early with one of the Dundee girls taking a nasty tumble and damaging her knee, and Glasgow's Dreaded Dragon taking a spill and suffering a pretty swollen wrist...

Finally, the entire hall was ours and our superfast track committee had the track tape measured out and down in record time, letting the refs gather centre track and the fun begin. It was decided to go for a bit of a new approach to picking teams for the scrimmage with a technique that worked well at a previous mixed scrim (Grange Hell). We saw one long line for wannabe blockers and one for the super keen jammers, this allowed each team to be a good mix of different league members, which in turn allowed so many skaters to skate outside their own comfort zone, learning from other skaters they hadn't bouted with before and really getting to know the different teams we have in Scotland. Roller derby has a way of bringing girls together and forging new friendships unlike any other sport out there and it wasn't long before all the girls were chatting away and having a good giggle while they waited for their chance on track.

Half-time came and to the delight of everyone’s rumbling stomachs our girl Coco Pox brought out a huge tin of homemade festive delights for everyone to munch on! THANKS COCO!

The second half held more action with another good hour’s worth of jams and lots more laughs on and off track. As usual, most of the action was caught on camera by the lovely Wullie Marr who’s always there to snap the GRG at their best!

The end result was definitely a very successful day of roller derby, new friends and tighter teams. Thanks to all who travelled through to skate, ref and help out with the action... and especially to the GRG who organised it all! Oh, and Happy Christmas and a very Derby-filled New Year.

Miss Troublegum, GRG