So were to start? Well as always I guess the best place would naturally be at the beginning, for Roller Derby has always held a special place in my heart, even if in the early days of this love affair with the sport, it wasn’t exactly the easiest of sports to follow, having seen my first bout while working in New York, were I was at the time working as a camp counciler (read. Glorfied Babysitter) for a bunch of spoilt rich kids. From this first bout I soon found myself hooked with this obsession only grew while living in Birmingham, were the “Birmingham Blitz Dames” would soon become my team of choice to follow, pulling in countless favours and good Karma points with my boss at work, so I could make it to their bouts. However when I moved to Gosport, to move in with my gorgeous Wife Lily, I had to sadly sacrifice my evenings of derby carnage, only to eventually lear of a new team being formed down here in this costal town, which was honestly the last place I was expecting to find a team, let alone that a Male team was being formed aswell, a team whom would become “The Portsmouth Scurvy Dogs”. I was psyched to actually be part of a derby team, especially having been lead to believe that it was only the girls who could derby, so the prospect of getting into some derby was exilerating, despite the fact that my skating ability was less than non existent. Still I jumped at this chance to join the team, quickly blowing my hard earned commission cheque to get my start up gear together, while attempting to learn how to skate on my newly purchased set of quads, which would lead to a large amount of falling over and carving myself up on the concrete quad, which we were using for practice, while at the same time working on creating my derby alter ego, which after countless failed attempts and a whole bunch of crossed out ideas on the fridge white board, I finally came up with my derby name “Rudyard Crippling”, even though it seemed that the only person that was being crippled was myself, but the name stuck and it’s a name which I have now carried across as a Ref.
Sadly this team would be short lived, thanks to lack of interest and so the team was put on hold while we worked out a new recruitment plan, though it was around this time that our Derby Sisters who make up the mighty “Portsmouth Roller Wenches” whom had been going from strength to strength since their creation, began spreading the word that they were looking for Ref’s and while this might not have been my first choice, I was already too hooked from the few skate sessions I’d had with the Scurvy Dogs to walk away, so I approached the Wenches with the idea of signing up as one of their ref’s, after all this seemed like the best arrangement for not only me, but their team aswell as out of their arrangement they would get themselves a ref in training and I’d still get to be involved in the derby world, aswell as getting some use out of my gear, which other wise seemed doomed to gather dust in the wardrobe.
So now I’m a ref in training, working towards earning my stripes and attempting to memorise the numerous rules which, despite the chaotic carnage which might erupt on the track, is actually very strictly governed with rules it seems to cover nearly every occurrence and while it might not have been the original intention, I’m still having a blast while working towards earning a set of stripes to call my own, while generally loving every crazy and frenzied moment of my derby training once again.
