Memories of Meadowbank – by Crazylegs

Cold, grey and pretty much falling apart.  It may not look like a palace of dreams, but this city centre sports centre has, for the last nine years, been filled with the most intense of emotions and exertions for Auld Reekie; first game nerves with shaking legs and dry mouths, the elated wins,  the dashed hopes, proud parents, adoring kids, the cheers, the tears and the ever present circle of friendly high fives.  The 3rd of December will mark the closure and demolition of Meadowbank as we know it, and the start of major redevelopment plans to create a new state-of-the-art sports centre.

Opened by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent on 2 May 1970, Meadowbank was the first stadium ever to host two Commonwealth Games (1970 and 1986), but more importantly, it was also the site of the first public Roller Derby bout in Edinburgh – Fishnet Burns – in January 2009.  Since then, Auld Reekie have made it our home venue, and hosted almost 100 games, boot camps and events there.

Hundreds of spectators experienced their first taste of roller derby in this building and thousands of people from around the globe have skated, officiated, DJ’d, announced, and volunteered in the huge, and familiar Hall 1 at Meadowbank.   It took a wee while to convince the Management at Meadowbank that our sport was legit, and our wheels wouldn’t damage the floor but finally they acquiesced and a beautiful and long standing relationship was formed.  Here are a few of our favourite memories from our times at the hallowed Hall 1.

Fishnet Burns Night

As was usual in 2009, we were short of skaters to make up two teams for our first home game, ‘Fishnet Burns Night’, so filled the gaps with guest skaters from London Rollergirls ‘ London Brawling’ team. Stef Mainey, Grievous Bodily Charm and Sinister Mary Clarence to name a few, gamely donned some tartan and chains (themes were the vogue) to skate for the Highland Heathens and Celtic Chaos and our first ever Home Teams were born.  Our Brawling guests helpfully pointed that we’d underestimated the hall size required for a full track and a short safety panic ensued, about the closeness of the track to the wall – to be resolved by the staff at Meadowbank supplying a pile of crash mats that we  duct taped to the walls! High tech safety feature in place, the game could go on! Fishnet Burns was the first outing of Celtic Chaos and Highland Heathens, and the first (and last) Auld Reekie game ever to be played in Hall 2 at Meadowbank was a success!

That’s Entertainment!

Following their debut, our team went from strength to strength, and played game after exciting game in the cavernous Hall 1 and as we grew, the number of teams and games exploded until we were hosting European teams, doubleheaders, and tournaments and boot camps. With each game came a new poster theme a new skate out song, and a new result. Half time entertainment went wild with pipers, drummers, choirs, jousting on giant space hoppers, audience races, egg and spoons, conga lines, chuck a duck, and so many more. Bonnie Burrito and the bARRG became a must for avid game goers and nothing could raise the heckles and bring a tear to our eyes more than hearing the familiar ‘Auld Reekie You’re so Fine’ chat combined with much clapping and stamping in the bleachers in support of our teams battling it out on track.

Home Season

After expanding our Home Season teams from two to three and rebranding them, Home Seasons at Meadowbank always created a huge buzz for our league and filled the hall to the brim with friends and family all fired up and ready to cheer the Cherry Bomber under dogs as was tradition.  Home Team themes and identities changed with the rosters over the years and planning the skate out took as much time as learning the game strategies; highlights include the cool and confident Cherry Bombers bursting through a huge sheet of paper held across the track, the Leithal Weapons epic Titanic themed intro complete with cardboard waves, and a majestic Jack and Rose and of course, the Skatefast Club brimming with 80’s attitude entering the hall through billows (thin wisps) of dry ice and awkwardly throwing sweets into the audience. Hands down the most exciting moment in Home Season history was the 2014 season final, when SFC jammer Kiki pulled out a tear inducing, heroic 1 point, last jam win over the reigning Home Season Champs Leithal Weapons.

School of ARRG Knocks

As our All Star team rose through the rankings, we used the halls and classrooms of Meadowbank to share our knowledge off skates and on, at the annual School of ARRG knocks -the boot camp of all boot camps.  For these, we took the ARRG quirkiness and just like our relentless use of a pun, we took it as far as we could push it.  Not content with hosting 60 skaters of different levels from all over Europe, we wanted to bring something extra, we had a Headmistress, classroom assistants, a school bell, school photographer, packed lunches and even a designated janitor to repair track and clean up spills – everyone dressed up and it was hilarious.  The year 2012 birthed the legendary School of ARRG Knocks warm up, to be bettered every year with Fame themed workouts, boyband dance routines (SOAK 5ive) to an elaborate weapons selecting cornucopia based HungARRG Games themed warm up.  Every boot camp should begin with absolute hilarity, we’ve loved every minute of delivering ours.

British Championships

May 2015 saw us host our first British Champs Tier 1 tournament, and a determination to make it the biggest and the best atmosphere ever; we decked out Meadowbank in endless amounts of bunting, and posters, we baked more cakes than anyone should see in a lifetime, and we had the biggest crowd ever seen at any Scottish Roller Derby event – the bleachers were full, the noise was unbelievable, and for the first time ever, we had a Bar (or a bARRG)….the Glasgow/Edinburgh friendly rivalry, manifested through loud singing and chants and fueled with drink was a sight to behold. Sadly we lost that day to Glasgow, but we took the win over Rainy City and secured our first ever silver medal!

Graffiti Art

Our new C Team, the ASTROS (All Star Rookies), came into play for 2016 and it also saw our relationship with the Meadowbank staff tested to the max as we decided to pull in the crowds by grabbing some giant brightly coloured chalks and drawing all over the pavements outside, inviting people to ‘COME WATCH LIVE ROLLER DERBY!!’  Unbeknownst to us, there was a very official fireworks event at Meadowbank planned for that evening, and the duty manager was understandably upset about the state of their frontage. After profusely apologising and spending forever washing the chalk off with buckets of soapy water, imagine our delight when it started to rain so heavily that the fireworks display was eventually called off as well…

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Hands down our most cherished memories are full of chilled out times with our team-mates in the gigantic ‘home’ changing room, when one by one, we gathered on game day – focused, nervous, happy, determined.  Carrying out familiar activities, chattering with nervous energy, chilling out with headphones on, fastidiously laying out equipment and checking lists over and over again.  The changing room became a place for bonding, meditation, visualisation, strategic talks and inspirational speeches; we wrote down our fears and hopes and dreams.  We shouted our values and celebrated our strengths and we dared to dream of triumphs and success, but most importantly, we knew that as long as we had each other we could take on the world.

 

At some point, over the next few months, the walls will get torn down and the roof will crumple and our  beautiful wooden floor will be gone.  It’s the end of an era and our future is uncertain as we continue with our search to find a venue available for us to host home games.  Meadowbank, we will miss you – thanks for an amazing decade.

Here’s a wee video of all our programmes from the years…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain of the All Star Reserves, Cirque Du Slay, has written us a round up of ARRG’s All Star Reserves British Championships campaign and some great info about their secret weapon for the upcoming game on the 12th August at Meadowbank Sports Centre. Here it is with some excellent photos. 

This is the Reserves’ first year participating in British Champs and it’s been an absolute cracker. Our journey through Tier 3 Women’s North has been an exceptional development opportunity for all of us as individual skaters and as a team, as well as a ton of fun, and we’re doing pretty damn well! As we approach the final games of our tier on August 12th with one eye firmly on British Champs playoffs in September (fingers crossed!), it seems like a good time to look back on all we’ve achieved so far.

We kicked things off back in Aberdeen in April with an absolute nailbiter of a game against the hosts, and our tier’s current leader, Granite City Roller Derby. Top hosting prize for providing blowing bubbles and smiley face balloons, pals! Granite ultimately took the win with a heart-stopping scoreline of 201-199, with both teams playing some pretty epic roller derby along the way.

For our next challenge, we took on Spa Town Roller Girls in Halifax. We prepped good by fuelling up on noodles the night before at a hotel in Huddersfield, to take on a team from Harrogate in Halifax (Reserves’ English geography is coming on in leaps and bounds).

Obviously this was an excellent strategy as we won by a comfortable 453-58. Here we are celebrating. Aren’t we just sickeningly adorable?

After that we got to host our Tier 3 North pals in sunny Edinburgh, sharing our venue with a wee Iron Man competition, just in case anyone lacked for sporting inspiration that day. The crowd was full of cheering friendly faces from the rest of our incredible league and their support carried us to a second convincing win of 290-77 against Halifax Bruising Banditas.

Our fourth game took us back on the road (karaoke may have featured) to our third country of British Champs so far, taking on Furness Firecrackers in North Wales. Furness came out all guns blazing and there was a tense series of lead changes at the beginning, but we pulled away decisively to take yet another win of 308-134.

Next up, we are hosting all six teams for an exciting final in which we will take on North Wales Roller Derby for the chance to make it to British Champs playoffs in Stoke-on-Trent in September. There is everything to play for and we are sure of a great day for not just our team, but all of our wonderful opponents, officials, volunteers, fans, organisers, announcers, bout crew, designers, track layers, PA operators, social media updaterers and videographers who make all the good fun roller derby happen.

The Reserves are feeling pretty confident about this game, cos we have a secret (?) weapon and her name is Big Shirl. Big Shirl may be two-dimensional, but she knows how to make the most out of life (pictured below on a casual intergame fashion shoot), and she is the ultimate teammate. She is made up of every single Reserve who has played for us in this tournament, and of the combined strengths that every single one of us contributes to the team. She contains our goals, our successes, our best bits, our in-jokes and our reasons to be proud. She has been with us in Aberdeen, in Halifax, in Edinburgh and in North Wales and soon she will be back with us for our final game, cheering us on and reminding us of how hard we have worked and how much we’ve improved and all that we are capable of together. Come see.

Following on from the Twisted Thistles’ success at the ECDX tournament in Philadelphia last year, the entire league pulled together again this year to organise and fundraise for a return visit to the USA: this time, to the cheekily-named Big O tournament in Eugene, Oregon (1st – 3rd May 2014). A valuable chance to watch the highest-ranked teams play and to check out new tactics and strategies, it also gave the Twisted Thistles the opportunity to go head to head against some tough opponents and see how we compared against teams ranked higher than ourselves.

Having all successfully made our way to Portland, Oregon with skates and kit intact, we kicked off our trip with an unofficial game before the tournament against the Rose City B team Axles of Annihilation. This gave us the opportunity to get our heads back into the game, and also to practice skating on a sports-cork floor, slightly more slippery and unpredictable than the wooden floor we usually practice on.

As the only European team in attendance, we were asked to sing O Flower of Scotland at the opening ceremony: having done some frantic last-minute practicing in a hotel room the night before, we decided to go a cappella and belt it out in finest Scottish tradition without musical accompaniment. It was quite a contrast to the respectful and beautifully-sung Canadian and USA anthems which preceded it!

Once the tournament kicked off, we realised we were up against some tough competition: nearly all the team we were scheduled to play against were ranked significantly above us in the WFTDA worldwide rankings. Our first game was against Arizona (ranked number 54), whose line-up included Team USA skater Atomatrix. ARRG put up a respectable fight, but the final result was a win for Arizona of 333-174. Saturday saw two games in one day, and two surprise wins for ARRG against number 42-ranked Tuscon (177-141) and number 39-ranked Sac City (169-151). Tournaments usually bring out the best in ARRG, and it was clear that all the hard work in the previous months – working on our strength, endurance and the ARRG ‘hive mind’ – were paying off. Our final game was against Emerald City, the hosts of the Big O tournament. Near us in the rankings, it was clear from the start that it would be a closely-matched game. Despite skating our hearts out, we lost to a solid and tightly-knit Emerald 193 – 142. Happy but knackered, we then headed to the bleachers to watch our own Admiral Attackbar skate as one of ‘Team MVP’ vs Team America. When Admiral pushed through the pack as the first jammer to put points on the board for Team MVP, her ARRG supporters went wild!

We had a couple of days in Portland after the tournament to decompress: a process that involved multiple visits to Whole Foods, hours soaking in the small pool in the basement of our hotel and a not inconsiderable number of cocktails. Returning to Edinburgh tired but happy, we’ve got plenty to work on to make our league stronger and better than ever.

 

 

Results:
ARRG vs Arizona: 174-333
ARRG vs Tuscon: 177 – 141
ARRG vs Sac City: 169 – 151
ARRG vs Emerald City: 142 – 193

On March 8th, our very own Crazylegs spoke at the TEDx Conference in Huddersfield. TEDx Huddersfield was a conference that coincided with International Women’s Day and the theme for this event was, aptly, ‘Inspiring Women’.

Lianne ‘Crazylegs’ Parry has been playing the sport of Roller Derby with the ‘Auld Reekie Roller Girls’ (ARRG) since their inception in Edinburgh, in 2008. Currently Captain of their first travel team the ‘Twisted Thistles’, Lianne has played in over 50 Roller Derby bouts and represented Scotland at the inaugural Roller Derby World Cup in Toronto in 2011. Alongside her team-mates, Lianne has played a pivotal role in ARRG’s growth and development, at times spending upwards of 20 hours a week organizing and advocating for ARRG and Roller Derby at both national and international level.

On June 28-30th, the Twisted Thistles went to Philadelphia to take part in the East Coast Derby Extravaganza, where they joined the Glasgow Roller Girls in representing Scotland in this major American tournament.

Be sure to stay up to date with ARRG happenings, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@AuldReekieRG) for all the upcoming news and ways that you can get involved (like shopping for ARRG, joining a Fresh Meat Programme, being a NSO and more).

What a fantastically jammed packed Fringe of joy! There was just so much going on I don’t even know where to begin. First we had one heck of a Fringe bout on the 10^th of August when the Twisted Thistles took to the track at Meadowbank Sports Centre to knock about in #DieARRG fashion against the Stockholm Roller Derby All-Stars.

They went back and forth, and for a while it seemed close, with both teams playing well with excellent jamming and impenetrable walls, but in the second half the Twisted Thistles pulled through and came out with a well-deserved 194 to 104 WIN!

But ARRG never rests, especially not in August. Just a few short weeks later (August 24^th) in a closed home bout against the Helsinki All-Star Ninja Turtles, the Twisted Thistles again worked together and slammed the turtles, Shredder style, racking up a final score of 218 to 133.

If that wasn’t enough excitement for one day, the doors of Meadowbank were thrown open and the Fringe crowds streamed in for the second of the Edinburgh Fringe bouts: Die ARRG With a Vengeance! Which featured the Helsinki Queen Bs and ARRG’s Cannon Belles. In this bout the Belles debuted some new skaters and exploded right out of the gate. Powerful hits and power jams kept the Belles’ score going up, with a final tally of 322 to 69.

After the fringe bouts, in true ARRG style, we partied ARRG with Helsinki and remembered how nice it is to be nice.

But, but, but! That’s not all we have going on at ARRG!

Starting up on September 1^st, we have the latest round of Fresh Meat strapping on their skates and pads to give derby a go. Learn how to give it a go by emailing newskaters@auldreekierollerderby.com.

On September 28^th, the Cannon Belles, fresh off of their win against Helsinki,  will be back working closely together and bouting against the Middlesborough Milk Rollers B Team at Meadowbank. Doors open at 2pm. Tickets will go on sale soon.

Then, on October 26^th, the Twisted Thistles will be kitting up for their next home bout against the Brighton Rockers.

There’s LOADS more coming up too: European travel bouts and lots of off-skates fun for everyone to get involved with. Want to learn how? Give us a shout here. You know you want to be a part of ARRG.

Plus, In top secret news: there are plans afoot for another amazing ARRG bootcamp! Keep your ears to the ground and you eyes on Twitter (@auldreekierg) and Facebook for more details.