The London Roller Girls played host to Stuttgart Valley Roller Girls over the last weekend of June, and spread some EU Derby love! We had Dolly Bust-her, Miss Tsunami, Carla Caputo and their coach RockDog representing the German arm of Roller Derby.

Things began on the Friday night at The Ship in Soho where many a beverage was consumed (possibly too many) and much merriment was made. It was brilliant to talk derby with people who are just as passionate about it as we are! Everyone immediately bonded, and we all couldn’t wait to train together the next day.

I think it would be fair to say we were all a bit nervous before we started. How would we measure up to the Germans? Would they completely annihilate us? Would our Derby bubble be burst?!?! But once skates were laced up, and helmets on, we all just soaked up being in the company of fellow skaters.

We also had Teflon Donna, a super kick ass skater from the Philly Roller Girls skating with us (and her lil sis from a new league in Virginia!), making it a truly international training session and scrimmage! Personally, I was bloody exhausted after the first drill - we line up fast to fastest, and the girl in front sprints as fast as she can for 2 laps then peels off - the pace gets faster and faster with each girl. Somehow I ended up at the back, and by the time 30+ girls had sprinted, followed by the super fast Stuttgart girls and Teflon Donna (whose dumb idea was that?!) it was all I could do to stay on my feet!! Those girls are FAST!!!

Stuttgart joined in all our drills, including Queen of the Track, where the aim is to be last girl standing. We had heard the rumours that the German girls were really hard blockers, so we were waiting to fly into walls left right and centre. But while they definitely enjoy a tough body check, they were eliminated due to some well placed hits and some tough penalty reffing from the LRG enforcer crew, so the winner was our very own wily minx Poison Arrow!

Onto the scrimmage on Saturday 30th, and my team had Dolly and Carla helping us out, while Miss Tsunami and Teflon Donna graced the other team. While I’m embarrassed to say my team lost by half, it was a hell of a lot of fun!!! Fast, Hard, Rough, and BRILLIANT!! Stuttgart were so much fun to scrimmage with! It was so exciting to have a whole new set of skills and talents injected into the scrimmage, and I think it really pumped us up to bout them in the future! Dolly was so sweet and gave me a big hug afterwards!!!

Hopefully we will see them again very soon, in Stuttgart next time! A big thanks to SVRG and our American derby sisters for coming out and playing with us! We had such a great time, and we will kick your butts very soon on the track, I promise! ;)

Meow
Kitty DeCapitate