Eastbourne Extreme

Today was an early start as the Wenches were off to Eastbourne to represent themselves, as part of Eastbourne Extreme were we were to help further interest in Roller Derby by taking part in a exhibition bout along with other teams from the area including “Brighton Rockers” and “Bristol Harbour Harlots”, aswell as skaters from "Eastbourne Roller Dolls" and while the original intention might have been to compete against each other for bragging rights, but thanks to a variety of circumstances in the lead up, the day ended up being quickly adapted with the skaters representing the various teams forming two mixed teams. Meanwhile I was taking up NSO duties as bout timer, which would not only place me in prime position for observing ref’s in play, but also allowing me to take full opportunity to pick up any advice that I could from the more experienced ref’s which today included “Reckless Rowley” who might be a familiar face to anyone who has seen the Helsinki ref’s guide to hand signals and again he proved highly knowledgeable on all things Derby, while also providing a great demonstration in pack refing.

Although I’d never NSO’d before I was keen to try and as bout timer, I was responsible for timing both the bout, which for this bout was to be split into two 15 minute periods, in a slight change to the usual 30 minute periods, seeing how the main focus of today had been switched from competion to promotion for the sport, which despite my own belief that the popularity of the sport is on the rise, there are still a lot of people who have never heard of the sport and Eastbourne Extreme in many ways provided the perfect platform to not only promote the sport of “Roller Derby”, which is something that was certainly achieved, despite my initial concerns that being at the far end of the festival, would have reduced our audience potential, but come bout time we soon found that we had attracted a decent sized crowd, while by time we had run through the first period plans were already being made with the Event staff to build on what we had established today.

The first of the two bouts today, was held inside at a local sports centre with only the minimum of spectators seeing how it was more for warm up purposes, than anything else but when there is a chance to get an extra bout into the day I was hardly going to complain, while also giving me chance to get the majority of my mistakes out of the way, to help further my own personal illusion of professionalism by the afternoon bout. Still I have always maintained that the best way of learning is via trying and making mistakes; as by making these mistakes it helps highlight the areas which you need to work on to stop you making the same mistakes again. Still it was during this first bout that R.I.P McMurphy added to her reputation by taking out one of the Harbour Harlots’s skaters, which certainly got her marked for the remainder of the day, with members of the opposite team frequently advising their skaters to watch out for her and despite her attempts to downplay it, I know that she got a decent kick out of having what was no doubt one of the hits of the day.

The second bout of the day was to take place outside due to the festival location which would be a departure from the more traditional floors of sports halls being replaced with the less forgiving concrete, which having spent the early part of my Derby career training on concrete I know all to well how little fun it is to slam on it. Still the change in normal skating conditions didn’t stop the skaters from putting on a great exhibition bout, with the weather brightening up enough to dry out the track, after initial concerns of the second bout being called off especially with the weather frequently threatening rain throughout the day, which thankfully stayed off long enough to hold the bout before it poured down.

In all it was defiantly a great day of Derby action and it even without anyone watching I doubt that it would have made it any less fun, while credit is definitely due to “Cherry Pileup” for putting together such a great day, despite the numerous factors which threatened to throw the day off, yet she didn’t allow it to faze her while maximising the use of the ref’s, NSO’s and Skaters she had. I also have to give credit to the Wenches for once again representing themselves as a team to watch, even if we also might have lost a few wenches in the lead up due to Injuries and other random circumstances, but once again they did us all proud.

Thanks to Portsmouth Roller Wenchographer Samantha for the photos