Turn Left Issue 21

EDITED, DESIGNED AND WHATEVERED

BY ADAM PETERS. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN HESSE: FRONT COVER, PAGES 3 (FARMER & GROUP), 4, 5 & 7 // VINCIANE PIÉRART AKA NSP 189: PAGES 3 (CAKE) & BACK COVER // RAGING BEAVER: PAGES 8 & 9 (PICS 3 & 5) // NICHOLAS MEEKS: PAGE 9 (PICS 1, 2 & 4) // FLOYD KING: PAGES 11 & 14 (SHORT) // LOTUS PHOTOGRAPHY UK: PAGE 13 (REDRUM) // THANKS TO OUR INTERVIEWEES & PLEASE SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS – THEY MAKE THIS MAG POSSIBLE!

So we near the end of another calendar year in the history of the Brighton Rockers. The 2017 season has been one of ups and downs, including two tournaments with Brighton thumping winners of one and a well-thumped last place in the other.

The year also saw the long awaited first A-team open door against neighbours Eastbourne (in the sunshine by the beach), the acquisition of full WFTDA membership and much more. This packed issue begins with a look back on the year. We also speak to five players making their open door debut today – wowsers!

With Portsmouth Roller Wenches choosing to publish the score of a recent closed door they hosted (Brighton won 202-133) the Rockers A-team have climbed to 68th in Europe, their highest placing since the start of 2016.

You should find a voting form in this issue. Pick your top players of this epic year and shove your completed slip in the shiny ballot box on the ticket or merch desk... GO ROCKERS!

REVIEW 7 OF 201

As 2017 draws to a close we catch up with a Rockers duo to look back on the year... and also ahead to today’s games.

P U N E E T N E V E S

EATH

FARMERGE

KE OR D A C & N O DD

RESULTS SINCE THE LAST ISSUE MAY 14TH @ HAYWARDS HEATH Brighton A 345-136 Herts A Brighton B 187-202 Suffolk B JUNE 17TH @ LIMERICK Limerick A 157-173 Brighton A Belfast A 65-453 Brighton A JULY 15TH @ EASTBOURNE EXTREME Eastbourne A 94-296 Brighton A Extreme Team 160-257 Brighton B

IT’S EARLY EVENING ON HALLOWEEN in the Alcampo Lounge. Outside, horrific creatures prowl the streets (that’s not specifically a Halloween thing, this is London Road) whilst inside Farmergeddon and Cake Or Death settle down in front of the Turn Left recording device thingummyjig.

A mob of feral children in half-hearted fancy dress burst in and start going from table to table extorting money. The derby glares from our table halt their approach and they scurry off looking terrified. There are scarier things than ghosts and ghoulies, kids. Such as Caen...

that game, but I think it was actually helpful. Maybe it shocked them a bit, stopped them sitting on their laurels. In terms of the A-team, our wins v Vienna and Portsmouth were great. Morale is such a big issue in roller derby. If you win a game then everyone is much happier, everyone turns up to practice and tries super hard.

If you lose, particularly over and over again, it can be really demoralising and it’s hard to pick yourself up from that.

Your second home game of the year (in May) saw the A-team beat Herts Hell’s Belles by about two hundred points. Expected or not expected? Every time we expect to do well we do badly and vice versa, so it’s best not to really think about rankings and so forth ahead of a game. I think Finn McCruel knows how well we are expected to do (based on the rankings) and for some people it’s good for them to go and ask her, whereas other people need to not know and just play their game.

The Rockers began 2017 with a tournament in Caen (France). Er, that didn’t exactly go well! Cake Or Death: I wasn’t there so none of that was my fault. Farmergeddon: It didn’t go well because Cake Or Death wasn’t there. Cake Or Death: Awww! Farmergeddon: The absence of Cake and Dr Whooligan was a factor. It was a real baptism of fire for me. Those were my first games with the A-team and it was quite a shock to the system.

The Rockers lost both group games by 200 to 300 points.

Were you expecting that?

No, though I know some of the team were aware that the sides we were facing were of a much higher level than us. Our opponents were pulling out lots of recently developed top level derby tactics like Triangle Of Doom while we were still doing stuff like The Fat Controller, so it wasn’t going to end well.

Um, OK. The game v Madrid on the Sunday was much closer. What was your overall take on the trip? I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was souldestroying playing the games, but it was really good fun. The team bonding was great and I think we learned more than the other teams did. I think there’s a lot to be said for that. With our Sevens tournament in August we really enjoyed playing Windsor who beat us heavily.

Somehow it’s a lot more enjoyable to be pummelled than to be the pummeler! You just learn more. It shows you the holes in your game.

In complete contrast to Caen the one day tournament in Limerick (Ireland) in June was a huge success. You beat Belfast by 388 points – the biggest victory margin in Rockers history! It was a shock, but definitely a nicer and more enjoyable shock than Caen! I was a little wary about the fact that we were playing in the first two games of the day. We had no opportunity to watch either of our opponents in advance and we only had a ten minute break between the games! It was good to play Limerick first as we knew that would be the harder game.

You dropped down the rankings as a result of Caen, but had a really good March at A-team level after A/B double headers home to Vienna and away to Portsmouth. After a lot of very narrow wins, the B-team lost quite heavily against Vienna B. I wasn’t in

July saw a first ever open door (and open air) A-team clash with Eastbourne. That was super fun. We were a bit nervous about playing outside, especially as they are so used to it and we’re not! But any game against Eastbourne is great. They’re our soul sisters.

In August you hosted a Derby Sevens event at Haywards Heath. I was gutted. I was due to play, but I tore one of my muscular abs and had to withdraw through injury. Couldn’t play, so had to just watch, but it was a good day. It was so well organised. Everyone who played was saying they were so glad they were playing rather than organising. Eight teams playing eight games in a day is quite a mission to put on.

Some games weren’t that evenly matched [eg Brighton beat Leicester 270-4 in the A-team tournament] but you don’t really know who’s who in an event like that. There was a famous England international in one of the B-team sides, for instance! Because Sevens is seen as ‘for fun’ people mix things up a little bit. As long as everyone enjoyed it, that’s the main thing. The scoreline that may have been a bit souldestroying for the Leicester seven would be like us at Caen.

You can take things away from it and learn from it.

A week ago (Nov 18th) the A-team were away to Cambridge Rollerbillies. We’re speaking ahead of (and going to print before) then... so, er, guess the result? I’m not there, so I reckon Brighton will lose. I expect a Brighton win, but it will be pretty close.

Any thoughts about today’s Rockerbillies game against Dorset’s very new B-Side?

We have a lot of rookies making their debuts. It’s a Rockers tradition at this time of year to give some of the year’s Fresh Meat graduates a first game. I imagine we will spread out the more experienced players, so every lineup will have a few, which I think will be a big help for the new players. I’m going to go for a Brighton win here.

We had our Halloween intraleague yesterday and one of our debutants is a really great jammer (a former ice skater) who sneaks through those tiny gaps, whilst others are re-

AWARDS VOTING TIPS Vote for Farmergeddon. Vote for Cake Or Death for all the major awards. Particularly Best Hair. That is a category, isn’t it? For B-teamer Slap Dash must be in with a shout. She knows the game really well. I’d say she’s one of the best team captains the Rockers have ever had. She brings everyone together and she’s positive all the time.

A real driving force.

We have loads of great rookies right now. Raging Beaver is improving super quickly. She’s got a great attitude and comes to practice all the time. Yorkshire Brew-ser’s jamming is coming along well. Everybody’s improving so fast. It’s amazing to meet on track some folks who couldn’t skate at all at the start of the year, but are now so fierce. I’m all: Ow! Stop hitting me! So in summary: vote for everyone!

ally solid blockers and so on... they’re a really good bunch and I think they’ll smash it.

Today’s A-team game sees the Rockers AllStars take on Norfolk Brawds. We’ve played them closed door quite recently. Though we can’t say what the score was, it wasn’t what we were expecting. They took us off guard a bit. This is going to be classic Brighton.

Either come from behind, then lots of toing and froing; or start really well and fade, then lots of toing and froing. But I’m going to predict the score...

Heck yes, Cake! You remain the only person in the entire history of Turn Left who has actually given a score prediction when asked... Indeed, and I was within three points last time! I’ve been thinking about this all day (I’ve not done any work) and I think it’s going to be a low scoring game.

Their jammers are good and they have super strong walls.

I’m going to go for 157-136 to us. If you’re as close this time you’re going to have to do this in every issue from now on!

It’s the welcome return of our annual rundown of what some other roller derby teams in the county of Sussex are up to... Hurrah!

NEW BOURNES We’ve been busy this year! We took on Hereford’s Poison Berries in a tied game at Anarchy early in the year, then played a mixed team at Eastbourne Extreme. In August we went to the Creatures of the Abyss tournament in Denmark. Our mixed team won two games and narrowly lost the third.

It was a great opportunity to meet other players and coaches. We had the time of our lives and can’t wait for next year.

Our coaches are involved in organising the first fully Level 3 game in the country, which is taking place today in Peterborough as part of England Presents: Roller Derby. Finally, the whole team has applied to play in a demo game at the World Cup in Manchester in February. Fingers crossed!

A-BOMBS Like the Bomb S’Quad, our coed/open to all A-Bombs team have had a fairly quiet time since Eastbourne Extreme.

We’ve only played one game since the summer, which was on 12th November against Mustard City, the co-ed team from today’s Brighton Rockers A-team opponents Norfolk Roller Derby.

We teamed up with our friends from Surrey for that and played as Southern Alliance. It was a really fun game. Eastbourne have played against Mustard City before and it’s always a hard game as they play as a really tight team, with well-drilled gameplay. We hope to team up again in the future with Surrey and play more games as Southern Alliance. Watch this space!

BOMB S’QUAD Since the epic summer high of Eastbourne Extreme, the Bomb S’Quad have had a quiet second half of the year. We’ve been focusing on recruitment as well as training up our newest Bomb S’Quad members ready for next year. The guys are currently exploring opportunities for the team and are in discussions for next year’s games, but nothing is firmly booked in yet.

Men’s roller derby tends to be a little more dependent on getting enough players together for a game, often pairing up with other sides, so keep an eye out on social media for the next match involving Bomb S’Quadders. We will of course be taking part in Eastbourne Extreme 2018, so look out for news about that too!

BOURNE BOMBSHELLS Since Extreme we have played in two Sevens and some closed doors. Half our team played in the Brighton Sevens, where we had hard competition against Leicester and Windsor in the A division. A few weeks later the other half of the team played Sevens in Rochester against Cambridge B-team (who we’d never played before) and our friends Basingstoke Bullets.

We are looking forward to playing our final game of this year against Apex Predators on 2nd December in Rochester.

We are very similarly ranked, so it could go either way on the day. It will be the first time we have played against our old teammate The PhilosoFear since she joined the Predators and it will be lovely to be back out on track with her.

MY ROLLER DERBY AMBITION FOR 2018 IS...

“...to get less penalties.”

RAGING BEAVER

“...to remember my kit in full.”

MILLS & BOOM

“...to watch the World Cup.” ALIEN QUEEN

“...to understand the rules better.”

EIFFEL POWER

“...to be able to listen and skate at the same time.”

KIT ‘N’ RUN

, THE DEBUT S Y A D TO LLIES I B R E K C O EW R

AND NHow do you feel about your

Are you planning anything special for game day? I think we’re planning a team breakfast as that seems to be a Brighton Rockers thing.

What have you done to prepare for today? We’ve done lots of training! We’re up to about seven hours a week at the moment. We’ve also done the boot camp with Sara Ekholm from Team Canada and we’ve been watching some training videos on YouTube.

Mills & BOOM is doing weights and Raging Beaver is trying to cut down drinking. Kit ‘N’ Run is thinking about doing some upper body workouts... but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Is anyone you know coming along to watch today?

Raging Beaver has invited parents as they won’t understand it, brothers and friends.

She thinks playing in front of an audience will make her less risky and more avoidant of the penalty box. Eiffel Power has friends coming and says it isn’t playing in front of a crowd in general but the friends that are more worrying! Alien Queen might have quite a lot of family and friends here today, including her daughter, stepmother, girlfriend, sister and nieces.

BR MEET FIVE

AS THE ROCKERS PREPARE TO LAUNCH THEIR LATEST FRESH MEAT INTAKE WE CATCH UP WITH FIVE SKATERS MAKING THEIR DEBUTS IN TODAY’S ROCKERBILLIES GAME...

first game? We’re all terrified – but it’s a good scared!

Kit’s partner Finn and baby Silka will be in attendance.

Playing in front of people is initially more nervous-making and exciting, but as it goes on we think we’ll just get into it. Once the game starts it’s hard to think about anything else as it’s so consuming and intense. Mills & BOOM is not telling her mum because she’ll scream over everyone, but her boyfriend Luke is coming.

This is only the second open door game ever (and first away one) for many of Dorset’s B-Side, so they are in a similar boat to you. Is that good or bad? We think it seems like a good thing. It feels like it’s closer to a fair fight and people will be of an evenish level. It will be exciting to play people we don’t know.

What should the crowd look out from the five of you?

Beaver’s offence, Eiffel’s speed, both Mills and Alien’s calming vibes, plus Kit’s sound effects – squeaking and squeals!

How important is it to have experienced players alongside you on your debut? It’s really important. The more experienced people have their own strengths and ways of assisting and inspiring us. Slap Dash is a great captain – she’s super supportive and positive – and the most recent ex Fresh Meat are really encouraging.

What are you expecting from the game? Would you like to predict the score? We think it’ll be close but the Rockerbillies will have the edge!

What were your favourite and least favourite aspects of Fresh Meat and learning the sport of roller derby?

Kit: My favourite aspect is being part of a team sport for the first time ever. The worst was the initial anguish over choosing and buying the rookie skate bundle (spendy) whilst wondering if I would be any good, enjoy it and be able to commit.

Alien: This was also my first time being part of a sports team. I like the fact that no balls are involved, and I enjoyed the fact I turned out to be much more confident on skates than I expected. I thought there might be more of an age range (as there is across the league in general) but I’m old enough to be the mother of most of the Fresh Meat intake. That’s one of the reasons why I went for Alien Queen as my derby name – good maternal role model!

Eiffel: My favourite aspects of Fresh Meat were the people that I got to meet. I can’t think of anything that I disliked while learning roller derby.

What surprised you most about taking up derby? Kit: That you don’t hurt yourself quite as much as you might imagine, and that I now actively wash my elbows and knees for the first time in my life! Alien: I thought the contact aspect and falling over would be more painful, but you don’t often notice it. Eiffel: I was surprised by how fast you can improve from having no balance whatsoever to actually being able to block people skating past.

Any advice for people thinking of joining the new Fresh Meat intake? Kit: Try not to compare yourself to other more experienced skaters and give yourself a hard time about it. If you choose a rookie starter bundle you should definitely upgrade the knee pads.

Alien: Take pleasure in small victories. Eiffel: I’d advise people not to be afraid to join. I have been wanting to be a part of it for years, but had to be pushed by my partner to actually start Fresh Meat. Everyone there is very supportive and I really wish I’d joined earlier!

FRESH MEAT TASTER SESSIONS ARE TAKING PLACE THIS MONDAY EVE (27TH) AND SUNDAY DAY (3RD).

DROP A LINE TO INFO@ BRIGHTONROCKERS.COM ASAP FOR MORE DETAILS.

RANKINGS AND PREDICTIONS FROM FLATTRACKSTATS.COM

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For anyone who doesn’t know of Norfolk Roller Derby, can you tell us a little about the history of your league? And what’s the roller derby scene like in your part of the country? NRD started as The Norfolk Brawds in 2010. Now we are Brawds, Smacksons, Shucks, Mustards, Yares and Daddies. Roller derby in Norfolk is NRD all day.

We’re the only game in town.

because our real strength lies in stats. We will spreadsheet Brighton into submission!

What do you know about the Brighton team that you’re up against? Any particular Rockers players or tactics that you’ll be looking out for? We’ve been doing our research and are quite perturbed to have discovered that Brighton will be intending to stand in front of our jammers and try to stop them getting past. Jolly unsporting if you ask us!

The day’s other game sees Brighton Rockerbillies take on Dorset B. Any thoughts about that contest? We think all the wheely folks will do the thing and it will be ace.

Any particular Norfolk players or tactics people in the crowd should look out for?

720 degree apex jumps and sick baseball slides. Actually, NRD really stands for team NeRD

Finally, any words for the Brawds fans in today’s crowd? Bishy barnabee. But seriously, thanks for travelling all this way. We are far away from everywhere.

Flattrackstats has widely differing predictions for the Rockers v Brawds game depending on which ranking system is used (UKRDA or Europe). What result/score are you expecting? We think the real winners today will be the spectators, amirite?

What ambitions do Norfolk Roller Derby have for 2018 and beyond? World peace, derby domination and dairyfree ice cream.

USING UKRDA RANKINGS BRIGHTON A: 25TH (595.0pts) NORFOLK A: 36TH (549.4pts) BRIGHTON A 83% CHANCE OF WINNING PREDICTED DIFFERENTIAL OF 17:10 SUGGESTS CIRCA 221-130 HOME WIN

USING EUROPEAN RANKINGS BRIGHTON A: 68TH (598.8pts) NORFOLK A: 63RD (604.2pts) BRIGHTON A 52% CHANCE OF WINNING PREDICTED DIFFERENTIAL OF 47:46 SUGGESTS CIRCA 188-184 HOME WIN THESE STATS ARE CORRECT AS OF 15/11/17

1. Despite popular belief, Norfolk actually has loads of hills. They just keep them all underground.

2. Leonard Cohen’s song ‘The Traitor’ was originally about a holiday in Norfolk and called ‘The Tractor’.

3. Great Yarmouth got its name after a poll of locals in 1964. Losing suggestions were Fab Yarmouth, Awesome Yarmouth and OK But Usually A Bit Drizzly Yarmouth.

4. Mustard is made out of the same stuff they paint double yellow lines with.

5. Admiral Nelson was named after his local pub.

N O I T O M N I T E S

DOR

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Can you tell us a little about the history of your league?

Dorset Roller Girls was founded in late 2010 by ex-London skater Canon Fire after she moved back to Bournemouth for sun, sand and... er... skating. We now have 35-40 skaters with some of the original DRG members coaching and skating with our A-team. In Dorset we also have our men’s league Dorset Knobs Roller Derby. There are a number of leagues within an hour or two of us that we play and scrimmage with on a regular basis. We also have some really experienced refs and NSOs. Most weekends you can find at least one of our officials at games around the country.

Your B-team is pretty new, having played just one open door game, home to Southampton three weeks ago?

Yes, you’re right. Dorset B-Side is only a few months old and it’s amazing to play our first two open doors this month. We’re really excited to be coming to Brighton for our first away game and to be able to don the Dorset colours again. For some of our skaters this will be only their second open door game and that’s really exciting.

What do you know about the Brighton Rockerbillies side that you’re up against?

The two teams have met fairly recently in one of Dorset BSide’s first closed door games, so we know a little about each other. I personally didn’t play in that game, but I have it on good authority that their walls are strong and they’re a lovely bunch of people to play against.

We’ll be doing our best not to be lulled into a false sense of security by their seemingly gentle natures off the track!

Any particular Dorset BSide players that the crowd should look out for in the game? Ooh, this is an interesting question... Without giving too much away, here are four players you should all keep an eye out for: Palmergeddon, who has eyebrows to die for; Skate InVader, who has some of the boniest shoulders I’ve ever come up against and is already sharpening them in preparation; Frocious – though she be but little, she be fierce; and Glittery Menace who (as her name suggests) is always covered in glitter and will leave her sparkly mark on the opposition if they get too close.

What are you expecting from today? A lot of fun, fast-paced exciting action with some hops, skips and jumps thrown in for good measure. I predict that Dorset will score some (lots of) points and that the Rockerbillies will score some (but not as many as us) points. Haha!

What about today’s Brighton v Norfolk A-team game?

I think Norfolk come in a bit higher ranked but home advantage should never be underestimated. I think it will be close and Brighton may just take it.

What ambitions do B-Side have for 2018? To continue to grow and develop. No doubt next year will see some B-Side members move up to our Ateam as some rookies move up to the Bs. That’s exciting for the ongoing development of DRG. We want to continue to play fun, open games and maybe enter some tournaments.

Any words for the Dorset fans in the crowd today? We love our fans and are so grateful to those who have come to support us today. “Oh I do like to be beside the B-Side, Oh I do like to be beside the Bs...”

RANKINGS AND PREDICTIONS FROM FLATTRACKSTATS.COM

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LETTERS RBILLIES) E K C O R N RIGHTO B ( SIDE) H S B A T D E S R O SLAP ACER (D R M U R D E What’s the strangest thing vs R

USING EUROPEAN RANKINGS BRIGHTON B: 317TH (453.5pts) DORSET B: 215TH (486.9pts) DORSET B 69% CHANCE OF WINNING PREDICTED DIFFERENTIAL OF 57:44 SUGGESTS CIRCA 171-132 AWAY WIN THESE STATS ARE CORRECT AS OF 15/11/17 NB THE DORSET B RANKING IS BASED ON A SINGLE GAME PLAYED SO IS FAIRLY ROUGH

1. Dorset’s coastline is known as the Jurassic Coast because its beaches are home to several velociraptors and Jeff Goldblum lookalikes.

2. The Leonard Cohen song ‘First We Take Manhattan’ was originally about the Dorset hamlet of Mannington.

3. The word Dorset is an anagram of ‘sorted’. And also ‘tripod’, ‘hotrod’ and ‘triads’ if you replace two of the letters with completely different ones.

4. Sandbanks is so called because to live there you need as many pounds in the bank as there are grains of sand on its beach.

5. Bournemouth is the only town in England where it is illegal to dress a seagull up as a Morris dancer. Apart from all the other towns.

If you could build a robot to play for your team, what special features would it have? Slap Dash (Rockerbillies captain): It would change size when an opposing jammer made contact, so it could instantly fill several lanes. It would also have some killer dance moves for the after party! Redrum Racer (Dorset B-Side captain): Sensors to detect pack definition that would beep like car parking sensors.

What theme would you use for a derby challenge team?

Starlight Distress – a musical theatre team. Our skate outs would be epic production numbers. We’d have two ‘acts’ and an ‘interval’ instead of halves and half time. The whole team would sing ‘So Long, Farewell’ from The Sound of Music to anyone who fouled out. I think it might just be Jackie Jerkheart and me willing to play for that team though. I’ve always wanted a Space Jam themed game.

That would be my ideal challenge team. Imagine the uniform and skate out music!

What roller derby invention do you most wish someone would create? Turbo-charged skates so you could get a quick boost when you need to chase after a speedy jammer. That’s probably achieved by just getting better at derby though!

Self-cleaning pads, or at least quick drying. I’m guilty of not cleaning my kit as regularly as I should, so pads that dry out quickly after washing (or disinfect themselves) would make the rest of my team happy!

you’ve worn whilst skating?

For our Halloween scrim this year I wore my ‘ugly Halloween jumper’, a knitted sleeveless cardigan covered with spooky characters. It turns out wool isn’t a great fabric to skate in.

It gets very hot very quickly!

I’m quite boring when it comes to boutfits. For my birthday at training I wore a unicorn onesie for a little while, until I started to melt doing warm-ups!

What penalty offence are you most embarrassed about? It wasn’t a penalty because she was on my team, but there’s a photo from an intraleague where I’m clearly clinging onto Skate Bush’s face! Super embarrassing. I wasn’t allowed to forget the ‘face brace’ for a while! When I started bouting I once got the same penalty (direction) four times in the same game. I got really frustrated because I didn’t understand why, until a ref fully explained it to me. I felt so stupid, but never forgot that rule after!

Would you prefer to play derby in zero gravity or on a magnetic floor? Definitely zero gravity. How cool would it be to somersault mid-air into a jammer to block them? Zero gravity. I think it would be hilarious to try and ‘swim’ and block. Making a wall would be tricky, but so much fun!

Have you named your knee pads? If not, please do so.

I’ve never thought to name them. Let’s call them Beyoncé and Cher. Haha, no I haven’t named my knee pads, but I guess Ludo and Sir Lancelot.

7

LETTERS ERS) K C O R N O (BRIGHT E G A N R AWDS) A R B K L O F CHAKA C R CUIT (NO R I C T R O H Who would win in a cats v vs S dogs derby game? Definitely What feature would you like on derby skates? Chaka Carnage (Brighton Rockers): A pair of wings I can activate in those annoying moments where you’re knackered and stuck behind a solid four-wall of blockers. I’d pop them out and glide over their heads. Short Circuit (Norfolk Brawds): A James Bond style booster pack for when you need that little bit extra on track.

Have you ever done any other type of skating? I used to skateboard as a kid, but mainly I just liked carrying the board because I thought I looked cool.

I went through an ice skating phase in the 90s with my Bauer skates, but again I mainly liked carrying them around to look cool. I was never that great at the actual on ice part. I dabbled with skateboarding in my youth... it’s hard!

What’s your favourite item of roller derby equipment?

Knee pads, since without them I’d literally have no knees now.

If I could talk to my rookie derby self seven years ago, I’d say buy gaskets and massive bulky knee pads from day one (I didn’t) as you’re definitely going to need them! Skates – without them we’d be nothing!

What’s your favourite spaceship and why? The one in 80s film Flight of the Navigator. I loved that film, especially the little alien Pee-Wee. I watched it loads when I was younger and still find myself quoting it today. Serenity. Because it flies like a leaf on the wind.

cats as they are cunning and calculating. Their derby brains would be on top form with crazy tactics going on left, right and centre. Plus they can squeeze themselves through the tiniest spaces. Dogs would just bound around sniffing each other’s bums. Obviously dogs. They respond to whistles after all.

Which would be best/worst at derby out of a penguin, llama and octopus? The llama would be best as it would have four skates on, but I imagine it would get done for tripping quite a lot. The worst would be an octopus as it doesn’t have any legs and would get constant penalties (forearms and elbows) with eight arms spread out across the track. Unless it could put skates on them.

That’d be a different story…

Best I’d say is the octopus; lots of coordinated moving legs and it can squeeze through small gaps. Worse has got to be the poor penguin; no ankles!

If you were a WWE wrestler what would your name and signature move be? I’d be Clockwise Calamity as I’ve had a fair few clockwise penalties in my time – although obviously I’m reformed now! I’d dress as a massive clock and my move would be doing something illegal to win. Maybe I’d hide a giant net in my clock outfit, to pull out and throw over my opponent, then just sit on them.

I’d stick with Shorty. My special move would be something like a cobra to collapse then a black widow to finish. Looks just like a game of Twister, yeah?

Q. How do you get 14 roller derby players into a minibus?

A. Hire it to take them to their next away game.

Q. What’s the difference between a super agile jammer and a chartered surveyor?

A. One jumps apexes, whilst the other offers advice on a range of property-related issues.

Q. How many Rockers does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. One. Unless it’s a really big lightbulb (such as that in a lighthouse) which will require several people and lots of specialist equipment.

Knock! Knock!

“Who’s there?”

A team comprised of skaters.

“A team comprised of skaters who?” ...must be uniquely identified by a roster number, to quote game parameter 1.2 of the current WFTDA ruleset.

Q. Why don’t roller derby NSOs wear suits of armour?

A. Because it would impede their officiating in several ways and there’s simply no need for it.

Q. Why can’t saucepans play roller derby?

A. Because they are neither sentient nor capable of independent movement.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a LaserHammer are in a gents loo.

“My great grandfather was so strong he could lift three bags of coal above his head,” says the Englishman at the urinal.

“Ha, that’s nothing! My great grandfather was so strong he could bend inch thick metal bars with his little finger,” says the Irishman stood alongside him.

“Could you two please stop discussing muscular antecedents and complete your micturations,” says the LaserHammer queuing behind them. “The second half is about to begin and (as the sign on the door states) players and referees take priority.”

MORE HILARITY FROM DOCTER DERBY NEXT WEEK (WHERE WEEK = DECADE)