WFTDA started off as the United Leagues Coalition in 2004 with a handful of leagues under its belt operated and ran by the skaters themselves. Roller Derby is very much a grassroots sport and the drive has been to re-imagine roller derby as a modern and progressive sport.
Category: NMRD Object of the Month
Established in 2012, the National Museum of Roller Derby (NMRD) is the UK’s first permanent collection of ephemera and memorabilia relating to the sport of Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby. In 2016, to celebrate our new permanent home in Glasgow Women’s Library’s new Bridgeton HQ, we bring you an ‘Object of the Month’ from our ever expanding collections.
We want your old team shirts, flyers, zines and other paraphernalia to illustrate the remarkable development of the sport in the UK. Keep an eye on the Facebook page for future announcements on how to donate items to the Museum.
Photos taken by Rebel Rebel #15 (aka Catheine Hemelryk) with thanks to Joe Brown & Luke Harby
NMRD Sticker of the Month: July 2022
Puns, such as this one, are often used in Roller Derby and it highlights the sports’ sense of humour, their imagination, and the influence of pop-culture.
NMRD Sticker of the Month: June 2022
This Cherry Bomber sticker pays homage to The Runaways all-girl rock group of the 70s. Their infamous song Cherry Bomb from their debut album reached No.6 in the U.S. Billboard charts.
NMRD Sticker of the Month: May 2022
The 1880’s saw the emergence of roller skating, and races developed soon after. Roller Derby was founded by Leo Seltzer in Chicago in 1933. Here, the sport was co-ed with both male and female players, and on the track, all players were equal. It was immensely popular in its day, however, its popularity had its ups and downs (at its height, roller derby sold out Maddison Square Gardens). However, it made a more recent comeback in the 2000s.
NMRD Sticker of the Month: April 2022
For many who wear ‘boutfits’ on the track, the combination of playing a fierce and violent contact sport and wearing provocative outfits shows that women do not need to choose between being sexy and tough: they can be both.
However, many teams, in an effort to break the mould and transform from a fun league to a professional one, have ditched the ‘boutfits’
NMRD Sticker of the Month: March 2022
the artwork has retained its punk-rock origins as does a lot of the team, player, and bout names; many of the names allude to cultural and popular references. This is not unlike wrestling, in which pseudonyms are adopted in order to appear more fierce and threatening to the opponent. In the sticker above, we can see that this Stuttgart player from Germany has taken on the name “Polly Purgatory” to show that she means to send her opponents to a form of hell. This helps to showcase the fun, quirky, and humorous nature of the sport of roller derby.
NMRD Sticker of the Month: February 2022
Glasgow Roller Derby was one of the first roller derby teams to be founded in Scotland in 2007; fourth team in the UK after London Roller Girls, London Rockin’ Rollers, and Birmingham Blitz Dames.
NMRD Sticker of the Month: January 2022
Roller Derby is truly the epitome of a grassroots and volunteer led sport and a lot of passion and drive is instilled into the bouts and competitions. Often, players can assume an alter-ego or pseudonym character to play under, akin to the sport of wrestling. Players can illustrate movements and groups that they support and put their personalities on display and one way of doing this is to decorate their helmets with stickers. Above we see a sticker which states, “WE LOVE THIS GAME!” In 2022, this series of Object of the Month will delve deeply into stickers and how they are utilised in the sport.
NMRD Programme of the Month: December 2021
Season’s Greetings to all our supporters at GWL. We hope this Christmas everyone gets to see their families and that the new year brings in hope of the world opening up further and allowing for further international bouts, games, travel, and new friendships and further progression towards a socially just, open, and green world.
NMRD Programme of the Month: November 2021
As Halloween draws to a close, we commence bonfire season – so stay safe and well and don’t get mixed up in the Wrath of Hell this Guy Fawkes Night…
…Remember, remember the 5th of November.