Skate expectations

A girl with Bosco red hair flies around the hall at high speed on rollerskates, lapping her opponent and cheekily tapping her on the ass with her baton. The winning team cheers loudly, only to be drowned out by the losing side’s groans and moans as they trudge off to the side of the hall. There they embark on a round of wall squats, placing their backs flat against the brick and pushing their knees out, their bodies consumed with a burning pain.

The main hall of Poppintree Sports Centre, which traditionally plays host to ladies indoor soccer and volleyball teams, is awash with purple leopard print, tattoos, piercings and fierce eyeliner as the Dublin Roller Derby Girls hold their ‘Fresh Meat’ extravaganza. It’s a quarterly open day, in which the established rollers put the newbies through their paces in the country’s most exiting, and fastest-growing all-female sport.
An incredibly visual game, Roller Derby is linked to the punk rock and goth scenes. Many of the girls claim to be the ones who were picked last for sport at school and bring this rebellious streak out onto the track. Stripey socks, fishnets and short, short skirts are de jour, lending an exhibitionist feel to proceedings. What’s more, the girls create an alter-ego for the trip.
“The name is whatever feels right for you,” 31-year-old Christine O’Connor, AKA ‘Kitty Cadaver’, tells me. In real life, she’s a children’s book-buyer.
“Some people take their Derby name on as an alter ego,” she adds, “and channel their new persona, to help them push on through and meet a challenge they might not have felt up to as themselves.”
That challenge sometimes involves revealing levels of aggression that are conventionally considered distinctly unfeminine. But then Roller Derby is not exactly a conventional pursuit...

Imported from the States, Roller Derby is a high-speed, full-contact team sport for women played on an elliptical (oval) track. With two teams of five, the jammer at the back has to lap the player in front, known as the pivot, by getting through the opposing team’s three blockers who use their shoulders, hips and bootie to prevent the player getting through. There are legal and illegal hits and there can be a surprising level of violence between teams including vicious nudging, pulling and slamming into one another.
Safety is an important consideration and girls are dressed accordingly – but, as with any contact sport, accidents do happen and injuries the Dublin Roller Girls have incurred so far include a strained groin, ruptured shoulders and badly torn ankle ligaments.
“One of the girls who visited us from the States had two pins in her collar bone, a broken ankle and has since torn something else,” says Ruth ‘Feline Rowdy’ Hirsch, a 27-year-old retail manager from Dublin. “But you learn the safe way to fall, you wear protection and for most roller girls, their injuries are like a badge of honour.”
There are those who bristle at its exhibitionist nature and fear that Derby will be seen as a fake sport, like WWE, as it was during its previous incarnation in the ‘70s when an attempt to boost attendance backfired badly and pile-ups and brawls were incorporated into bouts.
“Roller Derby is different,” Feline Rowdy insists, “and I think it’s important to keep it different. The fact that we are not out there in gym shorts and basketball singlets is part of the essence of what Roller Derby is about.”
It has an alternative feel in Ireland at the moment but in the States it attracts all types and ages.
“People look at Derby and they see punk, they see fishnets, they see tattoos and stuff like that,” Michelle ‘Kim McKazzie’ Keeley, a 37-year-old full-time mum tells me. “That’s not our target market. It’s women who want to get into sports. Anyone over the age of 18 is a possible roller girl, as long as she is fierce and committed.” In America many teams have mothers competing on the same side as their daughters.
In Dublin, meanwhile, Feline Rowdy placed an ad on boards.ie inquiring as to whether the city had a Roller Derby League. With none in place she – together with those who responded to the post – decided to set up their own, meeting every Sunday to discuss the various steps needed to turn their dreams into a reality.
“The gear required – skates, pads, helmets – can run from between €200 and €400,” Feline Rowdy reveals. “And while we were prepared to spend that amount we knew that we couldn’t expect a person with what could just be a passing interest to do so, so we needed to fundraise to kit them out for the first month or so.”
They sorted out insurance, venues and sponsorship and embarked on a recruitment drive. It worked and they are now ready to play their first ever bout on home ground this summer, when they take on the Liverpool Roller Girls. There are teams now in Limerick, Cork and Belfast, and activity in Galway and Carlow, while the Irish will be represented at the first ever Roller Derby World Cup to take place in Toronto this Christmas.
The girls live for Derby. When they’re not training they’re readingabout, watching videos of or trying to get more people involved in Derby. Partners and boyfriends can get left behind if they don’t pitch in in some way.
“It’s ‘get involved or see less of me’,” says Martina ‘Tina Gut Her And Jam’ McDonald, a 24-year-old artist who handles the team’s press.
It’s a big commitment.
“If you join, you also have to make 75 percent of practices and 80 percent of our launches,” says Kitty Cadaver. “You skate on Mondays, Wednesdays and then again on Sundays. I try to skate at least once more during the week in the park or in a roller disco. Then you have events and committee work.”
So what should potential roller girls keep in mind before pulling on their skates? 29-year-old coach Christopher ‘Violent Bob’ Goggins thinks that girls need to look past the aesthetic.
“This is a tough, tough, sport, played by tough, tough women. You are going to be on eight wheels, you’re going to fall, you’re going to get hurt, and you’re going to wake up the next day stiff as a board.
“But don’t be too scared,” he adds. “It’s going to be weeks and weeks before you get involved in any of that. We teach you how to fall properly, how to be safe. You’re taught all of this before any bad stuff happens. So come down, try it, get your aggression out.”

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