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.