Solent Witness

Southampton City Rollers tell all

Can you tell us a little about your league?

JoyStixx (Director): SC*R was founded in 2013. I joined in 2015 and Tigermouse in 2016 so we’re veterans now. We’ve always been a small league but pride ourselves on being friendly and welcoming. There’s no rush or pressure to get on the bouting team – we just love everyone to have fun. Saying that, this game against the Rockerbillies will be the first time we’ve not needed to field guest skaters. It also marks the debut of our cute Roller Derby City uniform, so there are some real landmarks for us today.

How did you deal with the long pause in derby during Covid? JS: My SC*R teamies were absolute legends. We all made a huge effort to stay in touch. We did some online fitness, quizzes, set up an open mailing list so we could send cute things (postcards and stickers) to teamies in the post and just generally checked in on each other throughout.

We also met up at skate parks for outdoor skating together. I so appreciated the entire amazing global community of roller derby, but especially my team, during that awful time.

What have you been up to since derby’s return?

Tigermouse (Head Coach): This is our first game back. Until now we’ve hosted regular mixed scrims with guests, and a few of our players have been out scouting for opportunities elsewhere. We’ve definitely been busy rebuilding, which I think all teams can relate to. It took a while for everyone to feel safe going back into full contact play after the pandemic, but I think peer coaching our new skaters really helped build our overall confidence back up. Our rookies coaching team have created an absolutely fantastic programme which is harvesting great results. So I’d say we’re back and better than ever!