A long day today travelling to the Futsal arena in Cottingley to watch two roller derby bouts. It seems that Cottingley isn’t convenient by train at the weekend! I had to travel to Leeds then out again. I was out for 9 hours, 5 of which were at the Futsal. Fortunately I had food and drink with me, so it was all good.
On to the bouts. It ended up being a very mixed day for Leeds Roller Dolls as you’ll see…
LRD Whip-Its vs. SSRG Crucibelles
It quickly became apparent that the teams were mis-matched. The Whip-Its led from the start. It was half way through the first period before the Crucibelles managed to score. At half time it was Whip-Its 154 to Crucibelles 27. They continued to play with spirit, but the second half was no kinder for them. A final score of 304 to 62 painted an accurate picture of the bout.
LRD Rebel Roses vs. LRG Brawl Saints
It was obvious from the warm up that this bout was going to be played at a faster pace than the first. Both teams ran through what were obviously very well practised routines, synchronised by whistle from the bench. It was quite impressive IMHO.
Rebel Roses were first to score with 3 but then the Brawl Saints took control and locked them out. The Roses managed a further 29 points in the first half but the Saints had steamed ahead. Half time score was Roses 32, Saints 178.
The Leeds Roller Dolls were on home ground. Every time their jammer managed to lead there was an enormous cheer. But the support of the audience wasn’t enough to stem the tidal wave that was the Saints. By close of play Roses had more than doubled their half time score, but the Saints easily won with a final score of Roses 74 to Saints 338.
This bout went the way that I expected the bouts against the Parisian teams to go last week at North Bridge. My reasoning being that capital cities have large populations. The pool from which to draw roller derby players is therefore bigger than say Sheffield or Leeds.
In the Whip-Its/Crucibelles bout LRD had some blockers who stood their ground; the Crucibelle jammers just couldn’t push through them. In the second bout the Saints blockers used each other really effectively. None only that, their jammers got up on their stops and ran through the walls.
An important lesson that I hope I keep in mind is that The Skateful Dead will get beaten at some point. Soundly beaten. Neither of the losing teams today seemed to lose spirit which is great.
Thanks to (famous) Claire for letting me sit on her pillow for a bit and for answering my dumb questions :-)
And finally, a lovely gesture from the Brawl Saints. They made a tunnel for the Rebel Roses to skate through on the high-five lab. Nice one!