As luck would have it we were playing the very first game of the day on Saturday, at 9:10am. If you know anything about me or most of our team, getting up in time to travel down to Birmingham at that time on a Saturday was physically impossible, so we travelled over on Friday night. We got ourselves super hyped up in the journey down by listening to (and rapping along to) Kanye West and Jay Z.

We got to the Travelodge at about 10pm and everyone else had already arrived. We went to Monsta, Harlot, and Curls’ room and they had about 4 cooler bags full of food. Realising we had no supplies, me and G-Lowe went for a quick trip to Tesco Extra to get stuff for the next day. Crisps, popcorn and Lucozade Sport seemed like healthy, energy enriched snacks at the time so that’s what we bought.

The next morning (after I got literally no sleep) we woke up at about 6:30am, showered, had breakfast, and headed off to the venue. We had a little skate on the floor which was much more slippery than at The Thunderdome – cue 13 Bambis on ice trying to look professional.

Our first game was against Dublin Roller Derby. It was a really close game, all the way through we were pretty equal, and at the end of the game it was a tie. Harlot Jo Ransom was the one to jam our overtime jam and she got out the pack first! We were all going wild on the bench! Unluckily though, the score at the end of the game was 50-52 to Dublin. So close!

The next game was against Tiger Bay and we knew this would be a hard one. I jammed the first jam and got lead (yes that actually happened), but I think I called it off before scoring any points. We didn’t win this game either, but all was not lost, I had some cereal bars in my bag that were calling my name.

London Rockin Rollers were our next opponent. It was a really fun game and we won! The Rockin Rollers all had their faces painted, someone must have head butted my chest because I have a lovely red face-print on my t-shirt.

Then we had a massive break for the afternoon. I was starving and tired so we went to get a Subway and have a nap. We watched a bit of the gymnastics finals and wondered if we could ever be that good at pommel horse.

Next up we played against Central City, the hosts of the tournament. I think I must have still been asleep because I don’t remember much about this game except the fact that we won.

The last game of the day was against London Roller Girls Batter C Power, we were all super happy to be able to play them. The game ended at 60-28 to Batter C, which we thought was actually pretty decent!

We went home for the day pretty excited, and knew we would be playing the next day for 3rd or 4th place against Dublin Roller Derby.

That night we went out for tea at a proper fancy pub that was a little drive away. We ate all the food they had. I suggested that because it was Halloween we should go trick or treating around the hotel when we got back, nobody seemed too keen. We got back to the hotel and fell asleep watching The Cabin in the Woods (which is a really bad excuse for a horror movie I might add).

The next day we didn’t have to be up as early – so excited. But when we did get up I felt approximately 27 years older and the insides of my legs had fallen out with me. We went down for breakfast and then set off to the venue for our game, which was at 10:30am.

We started off the game okay, I got to jam quite a bit and when I lined up on the jam line the announcers were excited to say “You go, Glen Coco!”. All weekend the only penalties I had got were cut tracks when I was jamming (and anyone who knows me knows that it’s totally my favourite penalty to get ALL THE TIME) and this game wasn’t any different. Towards the end of the game I got like 3 cut tracks and spent about 4 jams in a row in the box, one time they called the jam when I had 1 second left in the box, the next jam started and I sped out the box and got lead straight away – so proud of myself. This was another really close game, and Dublin Roller Derby ended up winning by 4 points. We were all pretty gutted but 4th was still a good place to come.

We watched the final and London Roller Girls won against Tiger Bay, it was a good game to watch. Well I half watched it, I think I was half asleep for most of Sunday.

We all said goodbye and headed our separate ways to come home. Not too bad for our first tournament! A big thanks to Central City for hosting a great tournament, and cheers to all the refs, NSOs and volunteers for all their hard work over the weekend.

P.S. I totally pulled off an apex jump at scrim the other week, so now I need a new challenge – suggestions are welcome!