Gareth, Erica (Rayquadza) and Myself
After a Saturday morning meeting with a client I grabbed a toasted sandwich from the Centra and headed across town to my friend Gareth (aka Gearóid yer Mudder). He and a few others from the Waterford Viqueens roller derby team were going up to Dublin to attend an All-Ireland mixed scrim (friendly match) in the Ballyfermot Social Centre with members of Limerick Roller Derby, Waterford Viqueens and Men Behaving Derby.
Arriving at Ballyfermot Sports and Fitness Centre
We picked up Erica (aka Quadza) from her morning training at the Cill Barra Community Sports Centre en route and we got on the road. Barrelling up the motorway the wind whistling like a banshee as it passed over the vehicle and the familiar landscape unfolds slowly on the crooked horizons.The car shakes slightly in the crosswinds as Erica and Gareth explain the rules of Derby to me, and we were mostly done with the basics by the time we passed Junction 9 for Kilkenny.
Two teams of 5 skate counter clockwise on an Oval shaped track. Each team is made up of a Jammer (who wears a star ‘panty’ on their helmet) and 4 Blockers. The Jammers job is to get past the opposition’s blockers, and then earn points by subsequently lapping the opposition blockers. Points are only counted when the Jammers hips pass the opposing Blockers hips. Meanwhile the opposition Jammer is trying to do likewise.
The Blocker’s job, funnily enough is to block the opposition Jammer or knock them outside the track bounds using their shoulders, hip checks and tactical skating. Elbows, head shots or anything below the mid-thigh is not allowed. In addition, each team has a Pivot (with a striped cover on their helmet), which is someone who can become a Jammer if the Jammer successfully pulls off their star helmet cover and hands it over to them. The game is played in two halves of 30 minutes each, with a halftime break of 10 – 15 minutes . Each half is divided into several ‘Jams’ of 2 minutes or less.
All of this played whilst wearing roller skates. Try sumo wrestling in socks while simultaneously running laps on lino and you’re a teenth of the way there.
The trip was short and we parked up outside the complex. The sports centre was spacious and well fitted out, chlorine in the air as we passed the pool, the gym, up the stairs and into the high ceilinged indoor sports hall. The floor of a mesh of different lines of tape and paint for the bounds of the different games, poured concrete walls polished by the impacts of a thousand sweaty bodies.
There were about 25 attendees in the hall already. Everyone was changed quickly and soon the space was filled with the irregular hollow clock of kneepads on the floor as the group did their warmup and I set up my flash trap. The first scrim started soon after. White team vs Black team, boys vs girls.
Despite the briefing I got on the rules I have no idea what’s going on. As I watch it appears like some kind of rolling shifting shunting scrum. Intense bursts of jostling, Jammers breaking from the pack and gliding gracefully ahead and around the track before slamming into them again from the rear. Slipping through, or not, falling, picking themselves up, shouting. All the while a referee (oh yeah, there’s like 7 refs) circling inside the track pointing out and following the lead Jammer with 1 hand, and holding up fingers to indicate the points scored with the other. The rumble of a few dozen wheels on wood filled the spacious hall, all this apparent chaos punctuated by the shrill patterned whistles of the referees.
The 3 hours passed fast, substitutions rotating with the 2 minute intervals, the nimble wheel clad feet deftly accelerating, turning and toestopping. Grace and brutality all in one motion, it is really quite engrossing to watch even though I don’t know who was winning from one moment to the next. The energy is infectious and I juggled lenses and cameras, adjusting the flash to try and catch something to visually represent what was going on.
The day wrapped up, the winner declared and the hall emptied in minutes, a few staying back to have a skate and do some drills. We piled back into the car, a subtle umami pong from the gear in the boot as we drove home in darkness, the ride home filled with talk from the days’ activity and the history of derby, how it transitioned from some kind of violent costumed show on wheels to an athletic mixed gender sport of rules, leagues and governing bodies. The Alt girls on wheels image is instantly identifiable in the public mind yet despite how long it has been going it is still quite an underground sport, and hopefully one that will develop and give an athletic opening to those who just wanna skate every damn day.
Know what I love? A group that knows how to pose for a group photo
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