I'm a Sur5or

Yesterday I had the massive pleasure of announcing the UKRDA Sur5al tourney at Tattoo Freeze.

"What's Sur5al Sven?" I hear you ask.  Let me break it down for you as simply as I can:

The rules(in a nutshell)
The tournament features multiple teams
Each team has 5 players.
Each jam lasts the full 2 minutes.
Teams face off against each other in single jams 1 after the other, so for example Rainy City play Royal Windsor in the 1st Jam, then Kent Roller Girls play London Rockin' Rollers in the second jam, then Rainy city play Tiger Bay etc.  You get the idea.
The actual jam score doesn't really matter as long as you know which team won the jam, and which team got lead jammer.  You get 5 table points if you win, 2 table points for a score draw and a bonus table point if you get lead.
The team with the most table points at the end of all the rounds is the winner.
The penalty box resets and if a player fouls out, their team skate short.

Yesterday we had 14 teams, playing 15 x 7 jam heats.  In my opinion this was the perfect format for the event we were at.  There were a lot of non derby folk there who were at the venue to see some impressive tattooing, graffiti and awesome VW campers and I saw the same faces returning to the trackside.  With Sur5al there is no investment of time from the spectator where they have to make the decision to stay and watch the full 60 minutes of derby to see who wins or go do something else.  They can dip in when they want throughout the day and always be guaranteed at least 2 minutes of fast paced  derby.  There are no slow jams, no tactical call offs after 25 seconds and (hopefully) no long winded team or official time outs.

A couple of points I noted that I think could improve the format for the fans:

1 - It needs a proper scoreboard.  Other than being super attentive to the jam refs hands, or having announcers that can do maths there is no way to know what the jam score is as it's happening.  I guess this is because of the config overheads of the regular derby scoreboards. I know someone will knock one up soon or modify an existing one(maybe even me). Until then, it's often guess work.  Any volunteers for this should get in touch with UKRDA.
2 - It needs a visible league table. A large whiteboard with the team names, games played and points total is all that's required here.

As I say, these are really minor points, and do not diminish the enjoyment I or any of the spectators, players or officials took from the tournament and my hat goes off to all the organisers from UKRDA who made it happen.

I can't wait for the next one!

Looking Back at 2012

2012 has been a big year for derby in the UK. We've seen new leagues popping up all over the place, rankings and rating schemes helping to make games better for the spectators.  We've had series games, the 1st WFTDA sanctioned tournament in Europe and the 1st Men's European Championships which heralded the real rise of Men's Roller Derby in the UK.  We've had some of the USAs best skaters over for some games including a successful tour by New York Shock Exchange.  I consider myself extremely lucky to have been part of some of this, but here have been my derby highlights from 2012:

In January I became one of a handful of Announcers outside of the US to be certified by the AFTDA(Association of Flat Track Derby Announcers).  This was only possible for me due to Pelvis Costello who was willing to sit and endure a Skype session with me to run through the testing.  I also have to give a shout out to Dan Gliebitz as being the pioneer in this method of testing and went on to use his AFTDA certification by announcing at Eastern Regionals later on in the year.

Tyne and Fear hosted their first ever home bout with The Jakey Bites coming to Newcastle.  I donned the stripes for this one and got to head ref a lot of the Scottish refs that I started out learning from, such as 3 Majors and Brutally Frank.

Early in the year, I had a brief conversation with a familiar figure in the derby world named El Toupee and managed to give him the shove he needed to put on his Announcer pants.  Soon after he announced his first bout and very shortly was racking up some major mic time, and stealing my work!

July saw the 1st Men's European Championship(MERDC) with 7 teams from Europe converging on Birmingham for 2 days of hard skating.  Many of these teams hadn't faced each other properly before and so it was great to be there watching the rising stars develop.  Out of that weekend the nation fell in love with a certain Toulouse player, Mr Furieux and of course his rivalry with Southern Discomforts Reaper. This was also the first outing of my all gold suit which Cherry Fury now insists I wear if I'm announcing a bout that she is reffing.

In August I got to fulfill a non-derby related goal.  I used to do a bit of stand up and so performing at the Edinburgh Fringe is something that every performer wants.  Thanks to Auld Reekie Roller Girls I got to do this.  I was invited to announce their bout against Tiger Bay Brawlers and although I wasn't trying to make the audience roll in the aisles with laughter I think I still helped to entertain and inform.

Jump ahead now to November and I find myself in Berlin with some old and new faces, surrounded by the cream of Roller Derby in Europe, all set for Track Queens:Battle Royal. 3 days of top flight roller derby to decide who would be the best WFTDA team in Europe, and although the end result wasn't really a surprise the journey to get there proved to be a fantastic ride.  I earned my wings as a live stream announcer and I got to call some of the closest and most nail biting derby I have ever witnessed. A massive shout out goes to my fellow announcers(or Moderators as we're called in Germany), Lil Joker, Twisted Mister, El Toupee, Bulldog, Handsome Joe, Eurotrash and Bobby Babylon.  A brotherhood forged in our VIP lounge, and our love of sponsor slogans.  Taste the Apple!

I finished my year announcing for my home teams, The Canny Belters and Tyne and Fear and then being part of the ref crew officiating the last bout in the uk of 2012. I also think I claimed the penultimate minor penalty call, with the last ever minor of 2012 going to Dark Matter.

Normally when doing a roundup of the year, there is a point when the reviewer looks back and picks their top players and teams etc.  I'm not going to do this but I'll give my highlight bout of the year.

My highlight bout of the year has to be the 3rd/4th place showdown at Track Queens. ARRG versus Stockholm. After a weekend of close scores and switching game leads, this proved to be equally as thrilling.  I had the pleasure to be calling the game for WFTDA.TV and at times there was no point talking as the crowd noise levels rose to where you couldn't hear anything.

So, now all that's left is to say a massive thanks to everyone that played, reffed, NSO'd, Volunteered for, supported, cheered, cake-baked, filmed, photographed, and of course enjoyed any derby in 2012.  You all rock my tiny world.

Taking To The Bench

This past weekend saw the Newcastle Roller Girls A team, The Canny Belters travel to Edinburgh to take part in a scrim against the Auld Reekie Roller Girls.  We'd been invited to go up to help the Twisted Thistles prepare for their upcoming trip to the Track Queens Tournament in Berlin.  I was initially intending to go along and referee this scrim but due to a couple of health issues(gammy leg, bubonic plague/flu) I wasn't going to be skating.  One of the Belters said "Why don't you do Bench for us?" and I laughed this off and said "All I can do is occasionally shout 'Do a Win!' and keep track of the points being scored and penalties" but they decided this would be better than nothing and so there I was, on the other side of the official/team divide.  This is the first time I've done anything in derby where I haven't had to stay impartial, in fact being partial is what this is all about.


How did I find it?
Well, I enjoyed it immensely.  I found that the players on track responded when I told them to keep going, call it off, speed up, slow down etc.  I kept track of the points and who was on 3 minors and was able to get quick clarifications from the refs without needing to use timeouts.  I got good feedback from the players as well.  Apparently I am a calming influence.

I know that if I wanted to be Bench in a proper bout I'd have to do a lot of work to not only learn the tactics that the team are using, but also to find out what motivates each of the players.  Some players react well to pressure and so need that to get their game face on, some are opposite and prefer to avoid any pressure.

The experience did make me think about the encounters I have had with various bench managers over my time as a referee and I think it helped shape me into the kind of Bench Manager I would like to deal with as a Head Referee.

I'll post my thoughts on the Head Ref/Bench Manager relationship later on.

Turn the Other Cheek for the Sake of Derby

This week an article on the website of an Australian newspaper circulated round facebook and I watched as the outraged comments started to appear.
"If this dude thinks it isn't a sport then get him on skates and when we scrape him off the track and pick his teeth up we'll see what he has to say" - anonymous enraged derby person.
"He is obviously close-minded as he only lists white middle class things as sports" - Another anonymous derby person.
"Here is his email address.  Lets spam him with hatemail so he really gets the idea of how professional we are" - paraphrased facebook group.

  I'm not going to link to the article itself as I don't want to fan the flames, in fact in an email to Betty Schnockered of Derby Girls Blog, the author of the article said that already the comments section on his article has been disabled by the site admins.  He said that he had had 76 comments before it was closed and has had a number of emails.

I don't know what the original motivation or intent of the author was (although in his email correspondence with Betty Schnockered he explains that his regular article is a "mickey take" and is a "Bemused look at modern life") but there are so many people out there that will use this kind of approach to boost their online profile, get more hits and increase ad traffic to the website or just simply to try and troll.  In fact this type of article is not uncommon in the world of journalism as even big household names(in the UK at least) like Jeremy Clarkson use inflammatory articles to get their name into the spotlight just in time for the release of his book...

Ok, Reality Check Time People
This is not the first and will certainly not be the last time someone writes an article which is negative about roller derby, however if everytime one is written we as a community decide to throw our toys out of the pram and start name calling then we look doubly bad.  If we as a sport and as a community want to grow we have to learn to use educated responses to articles like this. I realise this is hard to do as everyone involved in roller derby is super passionate about it because we all, everyday make it happen and so when someone does launch an attack we feel personally aggrieved.

So going forward from this what should we do when we encounter something like this?  Well first off I will say that we should avoid sharing links to these pages on Facebook as that just multiplies the situation a million fold. We should contact the author with a measured response like that of Betty Schnockered http://derbygirlsblog.com/2011/12/07/mr-roller-derby-isnt-a-sport-wrote-me-back-betty-schnockered/ which is a fine example of the way it should be.

We should not be getting into mudslinging as then we lose the argument. If the author claims it is out of ignorance then offer them free tickets to a local league bout, get them onside and they may then write another article saying how they had been to see it and it is great.  They may however, write another article saying it isn't their thing but that's their opinion.

What I'm saying here is, turn the other cheek, realise that some people are not going to "get" roller derby and some people just like spouting off for the effect. We need to be the bigger person and show the world that roller derby isn't a sideshow, it isn't just about the alternative lifestyle or counter-culture. It's a professional and dedicated sport.

Of course this is just my opinion which I am entitled to.

CV Or Not CV, That Is the Tenuous Title

A little while ago I was trying to think of how many bouts I had worked as a Ref, as an NSO and as an announcer and I realised that this is now quite a task as I've done quite a few.  I spent a bit of time correlating all the info from memory, a stack of bout programmes, and of course Facebook photos and events and came up with a list of bouts and what I did at them.

I have now resolved to keep my derby CV up to date so I don't have to go through this each time.  With this in mind here are my thoughts on a Derby CV.

Why Should I Keep a Derby CV?

I know what you're thinking.  I thought that too.  But here's why you should. 
Roller Derby is getting big now, I mean huge and so bigger opportunities are coming round for players, coaches, refs, etc, and so being able to show your experience means a lot. It can help loads when you get involved with the press and they start asking you to provide a player profile, or just start asking the difficult questions. It's also great for looking back and seeing exactly how far you've come.

So what should be on a derby CV?

I've broken my CV down into 3 categories, Announcing, NSOing and Refereeing and I suggest this is the place to start (although you may want to add other categories depending on what you do).
Then under each category list the relevant info.  Here is my suggestion on what you should record:
NSO - Bout Name, Date, Teams Involved, Positions Worked;
Ref - Bout Name, Date, Teams Involved, Positions worked, Head Ref name;
Announcer - Bout Name, Date, Teams Involved
Player - Bout Name, Date, Teams Involved, Score.  You could also add on if you got a bout award.
Bench/Line-up - Bout Name, Date, Teams Involved, Score

What bouts should you include on your CV?

This is up to you really but I would work on only adding those which are played under proper bout conditions (and I'm not including "bout night" style practices), so I'm only adding bouts where the scores are likely to be posted somewhere like Rollin News. This is mainly for practical reasons as if you included every scrimmage event or every bout night it would crowd the CV unnecessarily and detract from its usefulness.

What Else is worth putting on there?

Record key events in your derby history so that you can look back if asked and give accurate answers.  When did you start skating? If you moved leagues then say when?  Have you attained any qualifications(BRSF etc)? Which Bootcamps you've been to? What Bootcamps have you coached? Are you a coach, when did that start?

You should also mention if you are involved in any "Admin" type roles within your league.  Are you on the board of Directors, part of the coaching committee, the designer of the bout posters, the social secretary?  Are you the representative on a larger organisation such as UKRDA?  Remember to add the dates that you did these things from and to.

Injuries...

If you are the kind of person that likes to be the war hero and show off all of your curious scars at parties then you might want to add a section detailing your various trips to Casualty.  It's one of those things that goes with the sport but it is one of those questions that comes up a lot when talking to press people.

I hope this has given you all something to think about and you'll now be rooting through boxes of programmes to find out exactly when your mate roped you into being a penalty tracker at a bout, which then led to you buying some skates and becoming the roller demon you are now.

One day when you're writing your autobiography, you'll thank me.

Derby Announcer 101

Derby announcing is one of those jobs that looks as though it should be easy, I mean it's just talking about derby right, and that's your favourite thing and you can talk about it for hours, right?  Well not exactly.
I've been announcing derby bouts for over a year now and in that year I think I've announced 35+ separate bouts (possibly more, I lost count trying to tot it up in my head). I was thrown into it very much at deepend when I was asked to announce at the Highland Fling tournament in Aberdeen.  There were supposed to be a gang of announcers taking turns but it ended up being myself and GRGs Helliverance for the entire weekend.  I had been studying the rules and terminology so thought that I had a handle on it all but there is more to it than just knowing the rules and not being afraid of the mic.

There are 2 distinct styles of announcing: Play-by-play and Colour.  This isn't to say that an announcer can only be one of these, you should be(and will be) a mix of the 2, it justs depends on how much of one you are over the other.
Play-by-Play is essentially breaking down what is happening on track during the jams. You'll be watching what the players are doing, what the refs are doing and making sure the crowd knows why things are happening. Why is that player skating to the bin?  Why is that Ref smashing himself on the top of the head with his wrist guard? Play-By-Play shouldn't be "Derby for Radio" i.e. don't simply tell the crowd what they can already see. Fill in the gaps with info they might not know.

Colour is all the other stuff that fills out the bout.  So this is talking about individual players or teams, talking about the win/loss records, Giving some background to the bout, the sport and the rules. Sometimes it's getting the crowd going and making some noise for the teams.

There are also jobs that go along with a derby bout that announcers do such as talking about the raffle and asking for the owner of a Red ford fiesta to move it from the hedge outside the venue, but I'm mainly talking about the announcing during the actual bout here.

I have worked with a number of people new to announcing(I say this like I am a wisened old veteran) and I always get asked in advance if I have any tips for them.  Here's what I normally say:

• Learn The Rules and Terminology.  It helps to call a game if you know the hand signals and why penalties are called.  Also referring to moves by the accepted terms such as "Star Pass" or "Grand Slam" helps the crowd pick it up as the bout progresses.
• Watch the jam refs when the jammer is leaving the engagement zone. On the first pass this will let you know who is lead jammer, or even why they aren't. On the subsequent passes it means you can see how many points they picked up.
• Listen for the whistles.  If a player is going to pick up a major penalty there will be a whistle blown first. When you hear that whistle look at the ref as they should be onto the part where they are giving the hand signal and now you know what the penalty was for.
• Try not to only focus on the jammers.  They are the ones that are easiest to pick out on the track due to their starting alone and of course the helmet panty but you need to also talk about the blockers out there giving their all in that position.  If you see a big hit, mention it. If a wall of blockers is totally controlling the front of the pack, give it a shout.
• Learn the player numbers.  If you generally work with one league then you will naturally get familiar with their player numbers so concentrate on the away team.  You will see the player number more than the name on the shirt and if you know the numbers it makes it more fluid when making the calls.
• Perfect pronunciation prevents punchings.  Skaters spend a lot of time finding the greatest derby name. If you think it could be pronounced a couple of different ways go and check with the player or their line-up before the bout starts. This also applies if the skater has a clever pun or malapropism in their name, get it right or you will be contravening the next rule...
• Make sure you have a mental swear filter!  This is especially important as it is after all a family event.  If you see that magical apex jump combined with a Star pass try not to get over excited and swear over the mic.
• Don't say anything about a player or ref that you wouldn't say to their face.  They will be at the afterparty and they probably heard you...
• Don't give tactics away.  I have seen and heard so many announcers say stuff like "And the Green Jammer is coming up to the back of the pack" and you can see the jammers expression of "Cheers, I was trying to sneak through and now this B4 has spotted me...".  Basically don't mention stuff which may give away a teams tactics.  Obviously if one team has taken a knee at the start and the other blockers are aware then talk about it as much as you like.  If they are blissfully unaware then keep it shut until the first whistle has gone.
• Don't question a refs judgement. If you start saying that such and such a ref has made a bad call then the crowd could turn on the refs as a whole.  The refs do a hard job and have to call things as they see them. When you are on the sidelines and looking from different angles and from a stationary position things can look very, very different to how the refs see them. 
• Try and be marginally impartial. There are 2 teams out there skating and both deserve to be treated with respect. If you are working with the announcer from the other league then you can both specialise in your own team but there shouldn't be any "My team's better than yours" going on.
• Always wait for the score to be confirmed. Especially if it's a close game.  I've announced a bout before where there were a couple of points in it and as the scores were checked the scoreboard kept getting updated and changed so there was a weird back and forth of cheering from the 2 sets of fans.
• Have fun.  Afterall it's why you're doing this in the first place.

All of this is what I have picked up since I started.  Some of it I figured out for myself, some I gleaned from working with some great announcers in the sport, some of it I learned the hard way!

Spreading the Good Word - Promoting Your League and the Sport

As one of my duties within NRG I have the great pleasure of being involved in the marketing and PR committee and if I say so myself we've been pretty successful in getting the word out about Roller Derby in the North-East and of course getting the all important bums on seats for our first couple of bouts.  So, what are the best ways to promote your league?  Here are some ideas:

• Get in touch with the local press and media.  The local news stations are always after extra stories and something which is still considered out of the ordinary like Roller Derby will be the kind of thing they'll be after.  Especially if the positive aspects of the sport are pitched alongside the highly exciting, bashy nature of it.
•  Speak to local colleges or Universities.  Media students are always looking for interesting new subjects to use in documentaries or exhibitions.  Make sure you make a deal with them to have access to anything they produce so you can use it for your own promotions.
• Make friends with local radio.  We are lucky to have a volunteer radio station in Newcastle(the AlterNation show on NE1FM) and we're now regular guests on there. They have had us on the show a few times and came to a bout to record a piece which was then played the following week.
• Put together a press pack.  It may sound a bit fancy and advanced but with all the people you will be contacting you will get sick of saying the same things over and over again.  Produce a press pack which contains some info about the league and the sport and then attach some photos which show you at your best. Make this available to your team to distribute as they are making contact with the local media.
• Hit the Streets! Get as many of your team together in full boutfits and hit the pavements of your nearest town or city. The appearance of a gaggle of roller girls will get the interest of your average saturday shopper.  Some things to consider are the safety aspect, so ensure that it will be ok to skate where you are going and for jeebus' sake, wear your pads!. The other thing to check out is whether you need a license to hand out flyers on the streets.  Newcastle for instance requires a license to flyer and so when we go out it's purely for a shaking hands and chatting to people trip.
• Attend local fetes, festivals and gatherings. If there is an event in your town or city then speak to the organisers about whether you can attend and promote your league, and then gather the troops and spread the word. In the past NRG have taken part in Zombie walks and had several stints of roller waitressing.  We have even been involved with a World record breaking attempt(Human Mattress Dominos would you beleive)!
• Posters, Posters, Posters.  Good old postering, the staple of any media campaign. If you are lucky like us then you will have some phenomenally talented people in your league that can whip up posters in the blink of an eye, and you should utilise this as much as possible. Make sure your posters are clear and contain all the info they need to and catch the eye.  Don't fly poster!  It's illegal, looks bad and will do nothing for the reputation of your league.  The best option is to visit local businesses and ask if they will display a poster in their window or within their establishment. 
• Use the Social Media. You can't escape twitter, blogging, facebook and all the other types of social media out there, so you might as well use it your advantage. Get a facebook page for your league, get a twitter account.  These are a must. Make sure you have a team of people to administrate these as they take quite a bit of time up responding to messages and requests. Get in touch with sites such as Rollin News and they will add you to the lists of leagues and will post updates of your upcoming events. The most important rule of using any digital media is DON'T SPAM PEOPLE!  I can't stress this one enough.  If you bombard people with 100s of tweets a day or 50 facebook posts then they will be inclined to block you and then they'll never see your message.
• Gather Emails and addresses for a mailing list.  When you have events you can then send invitations or flyers to those people that have opted in.

Hopefully all of the above should give you some good ideas to help grow your league and the sport in general.
Something which I should probably add here, is a bit about choosing who represents your league. It shouldn't just be 1 or 2 people, but you need to be sure that whoever is promoting your league(and the sport) can be trusted to give good representation and stay "on-brand" (I hate myself for using that term...). If you have a team member that is a bit sweary, then it may not be great to let them do a live radio or tv interview...