Pirates adventures!: Roller derby saved my soul

It's the day after the grand final and I am absolutely wiped out! God I miss having a bath! Nothing presses the reset button quite like a roasting hot bath. I feel elated and deflated at the same time. Roller derby battles always make me emotional. It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best – roller derby changed my life.

In order for people to fully appreciate what roller derby means to me I'll need to go into some background about my “derby career”. I have never been particularly interested in playing sports, I'm not the athletic type and at school I was tiny (still am! lol) and always picked last. I preferred singular pursuits such as reading or writing. All this changed in 2008 when a friend of mine asked me to come along to watch her play roller derby with the Glasgow Roller Girls. I had never heard of it and had no idea what to expect but I went along with my bottle of “cola” (buckfast) anyhow keen to find out what it was all about. I was absolutely blown away, never before had I even shown the slightest bit of interest in sport and here I was actually getting excited! My friend suggested I join their team and train with them but it was a few months before I summoned the courage to go. My first time at skate practice I could hardly stand without wobbling but by the end of the first session I was happily whizzing round and having a laugh. Not bad for someone who's never roller-skated in her life! That day I became addicted to roller derby.

Lola Bruises, my friend who introduced me to derby. The skater formerly known as Troublegum, formerly formerly known as Mean Queen Ketamine!

I started skating in January 2009 and I think I had been going to training for about 5 weeks when my life was turned upside down. Not many people know this about me, or everyone does and it is just not spoken about but in February 2009 my mother was murdered. Needless to say this fucked me up for a long time (and still does). My whole life as well as my derby career was temporarily halted while I dealt with a maelstrom of police, lawyers, family liason officers etc., etc. There was a lot of other things going on at that point in my life as well, I held down my full-time job as a scientist whilst also supporting my unemployed boyfriend and trying to hold together the shattered remains of my family. I'm not going to talk about all that here as this blog is about roller derby and it is a happy one I promise I just cant get my point across properly without providing all the background info. So sit tight, it gets better!

So, my mother died and I had to put derby on hold for a while. After a month or two (I cant remember exact details that whole year is a blur) I returned intermittently and attended training. I enjoyed leaving Claire and all her troubles behind and becoming Pirate Cut-lass, a ruthless girl who didn't give a fuck about anything and could be as angry as she wanted to be. In fact she was encouraged to channel all that fury and hit people, hit people, hit people. I didn't always feel like it, I couldn't always do it but hell I enjoyed giving it a bloody good go and for two or three hours twice a week I felt alive again. And if I turned up to practice and didn't want to skate, just wanted to be with people instead of sitting at home alone, I was welcomed with open arms and friends would offer to take me to the pub afterwards to talk it out. I can't state enough how important this little slice of normality was to me at this point in my life.

My tartan team helmet!

The best t-shirt in the land!

In September 2009 I was appointed captain of Glasgow's B-team – the Maiden Grrders. It was my proudest moment that year and the highlight of the year was leading my team to victory against Edinburgh's B-team the Cannon Belles. The game was fantastic, the after-party was even better and I felt genuinely happy.

The Maiden Grrders September 09

We skated out to "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. It was epic.

However, the joy was short-lived as the next cruel disaster hit me like a tornado. The week before our second game against the Romsey Town Rollerbillies my idiot boyfriend broke my foot. Not even a proper break but the bone in the centre was chipped and displaced. I was sent home from the hospital without even crutches to aid me, my friend had to fireman's lift me up the three flights of stairs to my flat. So now I was grieving and stuck in my flat. I couldn't make it to work and I couldn't play roller derby. I couldn't obsessively clean my house and organise and re-organise my things. All of the little things I did to keep myself from going insane were denied to me. Hell, I couldn't even pour myself a glass of water and carry it to the living room. I hit rock bottom. And to add insult to injury I had to watch my team get beat by one point in an overtime jam. Fucksticks!

Guess which one I broke? ;)

Ragin boats!

Mega bruise

I attended the fracture clinic for months, had several x-rays taken while the doctors and specialist argued over the best way to treat my foot. The fracture clinic guy said leave it alone it will heal by itself and the surgeon said I would need an operation to pin my foot back together. Awesome, I mean, it's not like that's two completely opposite viewpoints with intense ramifications on my life now is it? Anyways, I didn't get an operation and my foot did indeed heal by itself. SLOWLY.

6 long fucking months later and I tentatively returned to derby. However,it was too soon, I could tell when I attempted to plow stop. The pain in my foot was incredible. I was enraged and so frustrated. I despaired thinking that I would never be able to play again. I was so desperate to get back as everyone I had started with had now surpassed me and I began to worry that I wouldn't even manage a spot on the B-team now the competition was so fierce. My friend told me to be patient, just a little longer and my foot would properly heal and I could skate again. I refused to be beaten and I followed her advice and indeed when I returned in March I could skate again. Things were beginning to look up! So, obviously, life decided to throw me another upset, you know, because I used to be Hitler in a past life or something.

I returned from a holiday to Japan to the news that my boyfriends mother had died. About a year after my mother died. Wow. Cue total meltdown. It was about this time that I became a raging alcoholic. My routine went a bit like this; get up, go to work, come home, drink until you pass out. Except on the weekend where I skipped the go to work step. I just couldn't cope with the shit hand I'd been dealt. Oh yeah, remember when I said this would be a happy blog, well I'm trying but unfortunately that year of my life was a bit shit and no amount of sugar coating is gonna make it taste any sweeter. However, I've kept the rubbish bits to the bare minimum and I promise a happy ending so please keep reading.

I turned into a bit of a robot, I was still the same person but just hiding in a protective shell and self-medicating with alcohol. Luckily for me I had amazing friends who looked after me including my GRG friends who invited me out with them and came round with cake. Cake is good.

Skating in Queens Park with Mirjam

Two months later I was invited to play with the Grrders again at the Highland Fling, Scotland's first derby tournament. What an amazing feeling – my team needed me. This meant so much to me, I still had so much shit going on in my personal life. I was absolutely over the moon and rushed the last minute preparations and joined my gorgeous GRG ladies for a glorious weekend of derby. Glasgow came 1^st and 3^rd, only losing the 2^nd place to Edinburghs A team. A bloody good effort and a fantastic weekend I will never forget. It's a chance to lose yourself, to become someone else, to take part in something spectacular, to connect with your teammates and create magic and above all to laugh and party with the opposition afterwards.

Me and The Bandit! Ayayayay

Highland Fling May 2010

I am also a champion fort builder and this is a jail we built for Jeffrey

In June I went to New York with BamBam and we skated with the Long Island Roller Rebels. One of the girls that skates with them, Point N Shoot invited us to stay with her and she took us out to bars and showed us a really good time. What other sport in the world does this? It's amazing. Any skater, regardless of ability, whether they are beginner, seasoned skater or derby superstar can contact a league anywhere in the world and they will be welcomed, housed and more often than not have a whole bunch of awesome stuff to do mapped out for them before they even get there. We also popped into Five Stride skate shop while we were there. After a chat with OMG WTF of Gotham she advised me that the R3s I skated in were too wide for my feet and I would need a narrower skate. I bought the skates she recommended and about 4 pairs of wheels!! I couldn't wait to get back home to try them out. What a difference it made to my skating having skates that fitted me properly. It was such an amazing transformation! I continued to skate with the GRG right up until I left the UK in September 2010 but sadly we didn't have any more bouts scheduled.

Chatting with OMG WTF in Five Stride Skate shop

The Long Island Roller Rebels

When Jeffrey met Quadzilla

I arrived in Australia the end of September, having needlessly missed the Grand final by a day. If only my brain hadn't melted and I actually knew how to work numbers and sort dates etc. Oh well! For the first few months I struggled to be excited about derby in Australia as it was “off-season” - a concept I was unfamiliar with. I was absolutely choking for a game as I hadn't played a bout since May! I didn't attend many sessions as I struggled with the unstructured practice sessions but I did attend the freshmeat sessions regularly as I thought it was a good idea to brush up on my basic skills and get to know people a bit better. I was quiet, shy, very under-confident and didn't have much faith in myself. I couldn't get used to the slippery floor and this upset me so much as I felt like I was starting at the bottom and working my way up again.

However all this changed when the season began in January and I was given a spot on a team – the Road Train Rollers. I have to admit that this was the team I would have chosen if I was given a choice purely because all of the people I met in my first few months in Oz and partied/hung out with the majority of them were Roadies. Over these past few months I have really got to know these girls. We've partied, we've danced, we've drank, we've laughed and we've trained hard. These girls (as well as the other teams and skaters in the league, but especially my honey badgers) have been so encouraging and so good to me I've felt my confidence slowly creeping back. It was evident in my performance yesterday. I felt good, I trusted my Roadie sisters and I went out as a jammer for the first time (in the grand final!) with faith in them to protect me and I smashed it. I got a grand slam! (I also massively stacked it and lost the skin on my left hip but shhh). Win or lose I didn't care, I just wanted to go out and play the best I could and make my team proud. I'm happy with that. The Salties deserved their victory and I'm so pleased my gorgeous wee Scotty Rogue goes home with a win under her belt. Mum, you never got to see me play but I know if you were there you would be shouting and screaming “That's my daughter, that's my Pirate” and drowning out everyone around you. I fucking love you and I miss your smile. I know you'd be so proud of all I have achieved this year. I might not have a job or a plan but I have found my feet again and I'm happy. Roller derby saved my soul.