More New Leagues!!!

Introducing ....

Cornwall Roller Derby
Tiger Bay Brawlers (Cardiff)
Essex Executioners

and the new Wales Roller Derby League - The Welsh Dragons

Join their Facebook groups and show your support!
Good luck girlies

Derby love xxx

Help TVRD!!

Please click on this link (ideally once a day!) and give Australia's Townsville Roller Derby your vote - 

http://www.tasteforsport.com.au/profile/?process=vote&teamid=525

If they win they can get funds for uniform and merchandise.

Cheers everyone, Derby Love xxx

Rainy City Rollergirls Represent

It's a little old now, but for anyone who hasn't seen it, check out the article about Roller Derby and Manchester's RCRG on the Lesbian and Gay Foundation website.

The article is an informative and well summarized question and answer session about Roller Derby, with quotes from Sui-Cider, Feral Fairy & Ms'Isle.  And no, our friend Jeremy Clyman isn't sharing his views on lesbian fantasy in the piece ;)

CHECK IT OUT HERE!!

Blood & Thunder UK Camp

So, this was going to be a piece to tell you all that tickets have now gone on sale for the awesome Blood & Thunder UK Camp set to hit Birmingham over next year's May Bank Holiday weekend, however ...
in the space of the two days it has taken me to transmit Twisted Mister's message to you all ... the Camp is SOLD OUT!

Awesome response from everyone - hopefully this will mean that Blood & Thunder will be running more events in the near future!


Congrats Central City Rollergirls for organising the weekend, can't wait to hear all about it next May!

The Round-Up Bout TWITTER!

Remember to sign up to the brand new Round-Up Bout TWITTER!  You'll be the first to know of all the latest gossip in the UK Roller Derby scene, and linking up will make sure Jet Stepper keeps up to date with all your derby news too!

Go to : http://twitter.com/RoundUp_Bout

The Round-Up Bout Hits Twitter!!

Want to be the first to know all the news and gossip from the UK Roller Derby world?  It's even easier now to keep updated on brand new Round-Up Bout posts .... not only can you SUBSCRIBE .... see the right hand side of the page, just beneath the Blog Archive - but you can also now follow 

The Round-Up Bout Twitter!!!

'On a Roll with the Girls' - ARRG in the News

Auld Reekie hit the Scottish headlines today with a lengthy article in the Comment section of Scotland on Sunday.

To read the article, which contains quotes from Daisy Disease, Haberbashery, Armalite Angie, Skate Tastrophy, Ciderella, Juicy Lucy and Cherry Fury,  CLICK HERE!

Carrie on Skating!

This weekend Glasgow Roller 'Ghouls' hosted - a special Hallowe'en frenzy full of tricks and treats!

Here's what El Toupee had to say about the event ....

In their debut bout, Maiden Grrders took on the Romsey Town Rollerbillies in what I can only presume was an officially 'unofficial' bout - two twenty-minute periods instead of the usual thirty-minute halves. That confusion aside, it was possibly the most exciting bout I've seen yet. The Grrders and Rollerbillies fought tooth and nail to a time-limit draw. Big Cat Merv did a sterling job of play-by-play commentary  and the crowd, were simply loving it, and not shy to let it be known! Following a Zebra Huddle ("Erm, what do we do?!") the bout went to an Overtime Jam, with Romsey eeking out by 3 points!

Special congratulations to Darmonatrix (Rollerbillies), who bagged Best Blocker and Best Take Down awards.

Oh, and did I mention there was ref on in-lines skates? For Shame!

I then settled in for the first half of the main event: Glasgow Roller Girls’ Irn Bruisers vs. the Rainy City Rollergirls. The Bruisers ranked third at Roll Britannia, and so it quickly became apparent that Rainy City were in for a hard time. I'm not going to sell them short: they fought hard, and pulled off some pretty neat stuff on track, but even when the Bruisers down to two players on track they couldn't quite get their groove on.

There was a lot of penalty box action - GRG regularly seemed to be playing short on track. Everyone must have racked up more than their fair share of Minors, but there was nothing (that the Zebras saw, at least) that suggested anyone was taking unfair advantages.

Rainy City were in with a chance when the bout re-started, having chipped away at their opponent's score with a series of powerplays, but the Bruisers stepped it up a notch. Rainy City's Mookchops and Dee-Mise deserve special mention, as does Feral Fairy, for gutting it out against the Bruisers' defense and putting more points on the board, but when you're skating up to Evel Von Detta (who's skating backwards whilst smack-talking you) and you've got Dreaded Dragon simply gliding around the track like she's on rails, then maybe it's too steep a mountain to climb.

The Irn Bruisers won convincingly, but Rainy City definitely punched above their weight for the first half. I'm sure the Leeds Roller Dolls were paying attention too - LRD travel to RCRG on November 28th.

Scottish Leagues Hit the Headlines

Glasgow Rollergirls and Auld Reekie bathed in the post-Whip It! attention of the media on Roller Derby, and hit the headlines of the Sunday Herald this weekend.
Check out the article HERE! 

Short & Girly

Online accessory store  Short & Girly have just released a new range of Derby-inspired jewellery and accessories.  The girls are currently offering free UK delivery, so now might be time to do some early Christmas shopping for the Derby Girls in your life!

Merby (Men's Derby!) Official Pics

For all of you keen for some snaps of yesterday's historic action - the UK's first ever Men's Derby Bout, feast your eyes on THIS!  In-Depth Photos , the official photographer to the Central City Rollergirls , has just posted the official photos from the closed bout, run by M.U.R.D.A.  in Birmingham on Saturday.

Wakey Wheeled Cats - On a Roll

CLICK HERE to see the first video to accompany Linda Lumardy's online diary of life in the Wakey Wheeled Cats.   


Here's what she has to say so far ....


Welcome to On a Roll my online diary on life in the Wakey Wheeled Cats. I joined the league in August, after being sent to write a feature on the Cats for the Express women’s magazine.  From the first tentative roll I was hooked, and luckily they let me join! It took a while for me to get my skates and I’ve only been to a few practices so far, so you’ll be with me right from the beginning.  Hopefully it will be a good read, but if anything it should be a laugh, as I’ve already had some spectacular bruises, and there will be many more to come.  Rather than bombard you with a huge first blog, over the next few weeks I’ll keep uploading snippets about roller derby life to get you all up to date. But for the first day of  On a Roll, we have something very special for Wakey Wheeled Cats fans – our first ever training blog! Luckily for those of you who don’t like car-crash-telly, it doesn’t feature me, as I’m behind the camera, but instead Cats co-founder and coach Kirsty Quinn will be taking you through the basics of a roller derby game, and fellow co-founder Stephanie Sellers will be showing you a few beginners moves.
 I hope you enjoy it!  


Subscribe to the blog HERE , and if you have any comments for Linda, EMAIL her HERE .

It's A Bomber ... It's A Bomber

Introducing a brand new blog, penned by The Round-Up Bout's very own Jetspun May-Q Dizzy.


Dizzy will be keeping you updated on all the Lincolnshire Bombers news at 'It's a Bomber .... It's a Bomber', so sign up to follow the blog ... and while you're at it, join up to The Round-Up Bout too!!

Derby Networking Sites ...

Hopefully by now you're all member of Roller Derby Everywhere - the UK Roller Derby network on Ning .  


If RDE, UK Derby News and The Round-Up Bout aren't fulfilling your craving for online Derby fodder, then look no further than Derby Nation , another Roller Derby virtual world on Ning.


Derby Nation founder, Lizbeth Von Lush, welcomes you to the site ...


Derby Nation got its start when a few derby addicts decided it was time to have an internet community specifically for bringing all of us derby fiends together!!! Derby Nation's creators hope this site will become the place on the net where anyone interested in derby can look up events, bouts, bout results, leagues, teams and players - nationwide!

If you're not a player, coach, official or volunteer you are still very welcome! Because if you're not a fan yet, watch out! Derby is very addictive - and most who come in contact with it never are quite the same again!

So derby guys and girls, post your bout and event dates. Share pictures. Create groups for your league or team. Chat on the message boards. Blog about derby life.

She Did What To Who?!

Check out this blog El Toupee just discovered on Myspace, it's a Glossary of Derby Plays!


The blog comes from the page of Busta Armov , the retired Head Ref for the LA Derby Dolls , and a contributor to the amazing Derby News Network


Some of my particular favourites from the glossary include ...


The Inverse Bowling Ball - Blocker does a power slide or hockey stop and takes out the pack


Vee-gina Sandwich - Two blockers hit any other skater frpm both sides simultaneously


Tittie Takeout - A sub-category of the Johnnie Crash, in which a skater jabs their shoulder hard into the chest or breasts of the skater coming up behind them


Ass to Puss - A Booty Block in which contact is made between the front skater making the block, and the rear skater who contacts her with her crotch

An Incentive to Get Training!

Following May-Q Dizzy's awesome report on Grange Hell , the Round-Up Bout Facebook page has been buzzing with chat about one thing ... Estro Jen's arse!


And so .... especially for you guys, a little incentive to get training even harder at derby practice this week!!

Special thanks to El Toupee for completing the awful job of trawling through pics for one of Estro's bum! ;)

Tattoo Freeze Convention

Put a little money aside this Christmas and New Year, because something quite special is happening in mid-January.


The publishers of Skin Deep have decided to put on their first tattoo expo’ and, whilst they’re at it, have arranged a mouth-watering one-day Roller Derby tournament (featuring the Steam Rollers , the Suffra Jets , the Ultraviolent Femmes , and the Birmingham Blitz Dames) in addition to a whole host of other goodies.


The event is being held at The International Centre in Telford on January 17th, 2010, and tickets are £10.  CLICK HERE  for more details


So, mark the date in your diary, book the following day off work, and order your ticket as soon as…

El Toupée

The Derby Zine needs your questions .....

.... about boutfits and bout make-up!

Regulars to The Round-Up Bout will remember me posting a link to a new Derby-zine.  One of the Zine's columnists, Hula Gunn of the London Rollergirls , has specially requested the help of Round-Up Bout readers.

Hulz wants your questions and queries for a column on derby boutfits and bout make-up.  If you or your league have any questions you want answered, then email Hula Gunn HERE

Jet Stepper xx

Whip It! Film Review - (Spoiler Warning)

It's the moment we've all been waiting for .... an actual A-List movie about Roller Derby, made in living memory! (no, El Toupee those two made in 1972 don't count ;) )

Whilst Whip It! isn't due out in the UK until early next year, I'm fortunate enough to currently be in the States, where the movie premiered some weeks ago.

Those of you who are regulars of my blog will have already read Psychology Today 's Jeremy Clyman's rather dubious interpretation of the film and its lesbian fantasy elements (!) but I'll leave talking about his analysis for a later blog ... for now this is just about the movie.

Whip It! is a story about small town girl Bliss Cavendar.  Bliss's mum, or should I say 'mom', Brooke, is a former pageant queen, and pushes her daughter to follow in her footsteps, however Bliss is an indie-loving alternative teenager more at home in her DMs than in a ball gown.  On a shopping trip to the state capital Austin, Bliss bumps into some members of the Texas Roller Derby league TXRD and picks up a flier for their  upcoming display bout.  At the bout, she gushes to one of the skaters, Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), that the members of the league have just become her new heroes.  Maggie replies with the message of the film, 'Put some skates on.  Be your own hero!'

And so Bliss removes her Barbie skates from a box in the attic and teaches herself to skate, speeding first around her neighbourhood streets, and then around the banked track in record time during the try-outs, earning herself a place on the track as a 'Hurl Scout', alongside the likes of Drew Barrymore (Smashley Simpson), Eve (Rosa Sparks) and LA Derby Dolls' Kristen Adolfi and Rachel Piplica (The Manson Sisters).

Whilst the initial shots of the bout weren't particularly impressive or illustrative of roller derby, and I could imagine someone who had never seen the sport before might wonder from the brief snippets shown why Bliss becomes suddenly obsessed with derby quite literally overnight, the later scenes do make up for this.  The skating in the film is fast-paced, well shot and on the whole realistic, though I felt Drew Barrymore's character Smashley, clearly put in the film for humour value, only really served to degrade the view of Derby presented by the film.  Smashley Simpson was constantly drunk and extremely violent, breaking basic derby rules in almost every scene, and seeming to get away virtually scot-free.  There are a couple of awesome moves in the film, notably a two-man leg whip in the final jam of the championship final, and Xena stunt double Zoe Bell skates admirably in her role as Bloody Holly.

I absolutely loved the Hurl Scout uniforms, and thought the names for the five teams in the TXRD league were all brilliant, especially the 'Fight Attendants'.  All of the skaters had awesome Derby names - Babe Ruthless, Princess Slayer, Jabba the Slut, Kame Kaze, Eva Destruction ... but before you try and pinch any of them, they are all taken from active Derby girls!  In fact the real Babe Ruthless (Bliss's skater name) has actually just moved from Arizona to skate with TXRD!

But now for the rest of the film ....
I said I wouldn't mention Jeremy Clyman's article, but can I just say ... he claimed Whip It! could have been about any sport, and that Roller Derby was in no way essential to the film.  I completely disagree.  Frankly, if it weren't for the Roller Derby, there would be very little to the film.  Various issues are explored, but all rather half-heartedly.  The relationship between Bliss and her boyfriend Olly (singer Landon Pigg) is developed wonderfully, with a montage of really cute, yet not cliched scenes ... only for him to cheat on her whilst away on tour.  This could have been used really well, to show Bliss using the anger to skate faster and harder, but she basically just shrugs off his infidelity, and the good thirty minutes of the film used to develop the relationship, and that's the end of that!  There is also a sub-plot of Maggie Mayhem's single parenthood ... but again this is done somewhat half-heartedly, and you come away wondering why they bothered casting the little ginger boy as her child!  The film is funny in parts, but there are also numerous cringey moments, where you can see that humour is being attempted, but in my opinion falls flat.  Similarly some of the acting is rather hammy, and not just from the many real derby girls enlisted in from US leagues for the film.

Page is convincing in her role as Bliss, though I couldn't help feeling the character wasn't a big departure from her defining role in Juno.  The relationship with her parents was interesting, and the contrast between Bliss and her pageant loving younger sister Shania highly amusing.  Bliss's best friend Pash (Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat) makes a brilliant sidekick, and Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis) is a formidable and wonderfully detestable arch-rival! Whilst Drew Barrymore's character is little more than a slap-stick add-on to the film, her directing is nearly flawless, and you really wouldn't know it was her debut behind the camera.

Despite its short-comings, I would still recommend going and seeing the film.  It IS a historic moment in Roller Derby, as suddenly the sport is being thrust into the headlines and onto magazine covers.  Whilst the way it is being publicised (something I will discuss in the 'Lesbianism and Whip It' blog later this month) is perhaps questionable, the film has already dramatically increased coverage and awareness of roller derby, and can only serve to encourage hordes more girls worldwide to try the sport.

So, grab the rest of your Derby girls, and head down to your nearest cinema the moment the flick finally hits UK screens.  And when it does, let me know what you think!

Jet Stepper
xxxx

An Apology - Closed Bouts

Hey guys,

I need to apologise about the coverage of RWRG 's birthday bout against BRG yesterday.  The Round-Up Bout is just starting out, and I'm not only still working out how to best structure and write the blog, but I'm also still in a phase of trying to include as much of everything to really get the blog off the ground.  As a result I jumped on the opportunity that one of The Round-Up Bout contributors had already written a write-up of the Birthday Bash, and used some of it in a recent article without checking the nature of the bout with RWRG or BRG.

I have since found out that the bout was closed, and this obviously affects how scathing a sports report you can write about it! Or whether you can write about it in fact!  Whilst I really want to keep the Round-Up as impartial as possible, and want the sports journalism to be as unbiased and objective as any other sports magazine, I do appreciate that closed bouts are a very different matter.

In future, here at the Round-Up Bout, I will only include information about closed bouts sent to me by the team.  With reference to that, I am still on the lookout for Jetspuns ... regular contributors from all the different leagues, to keep me as up to date as possible on ALL the UK Roller Derby news.

With regards to open bouts however, the content is a very different matter.  If you have a review of an open bout, I will be more than happy to consider it, and if I receive completely conflicting opinions of the same bout ... well in that case I'll do my very best to represent both sides of the argument!!!

Apologies again to RWRG and BRG - as Derby girls we are all fighting for the same thing - to get our sport noticed and properly recognised by the outside world, and to increase the number of girls, and boys, involved in UK roller derby - and I would hate to think that anything viewed in the Round-Up Bout was considered to be contradictory to that mission.

Jet Stepper

xxx