Kent Roller Girls narrowly missed out on their first victory in tier two of the British Roller Derby Championships at the weekend, when they played SWAT Roller Derby in Herne Bay.

The team had invited the Lord Mayor of Canterbury come and open the game, who not only got involed in blowing the ceremonial first whistle, but was later seen cheering on the girls in gold from the stands with 200 other supporters.

The final score was close with only 34 points separating the two teams, the majority of which was scored in a 6 minute period when Kent suffered from multiple penalty trouble. Kent now have two months time to regroup before they take on the London Rockin’ Rollers, in the next game of the series.

It’s not just games that the team are involved with – they also all volunteer each week to coach and train new recruits to introduce them to the the hard hitting extreme sport.

The team have recently started to work with Kent Sport to promote the #KentGirlsCan campaign to get women to take up sport and try new ways of exercise to promote health living.

The team are hosting a free open day on 12th March at 4pm to try a taster session of the sport, watch a mock game, and have a question and answers session with the team.

Team Vice Captain, Herne Bay’s Erin Donovan said “It’s really important that women find the enjoyment in sport – we have people from different backgrounds from fulltime mums to managers, teachers to traffic wardens, as well as people who play other sports regularly and people who have never been sporty in their life.”

“It’s not a sport where your height, weight or shape matter, it’s more a question of if you have the right attitude and are willing to learn the skills to make you useful to your teammates.”

Roller Derby is a fast paced, full contact sport played on quad rollerskates, the jammers ( wearing a star helmet cover) are the point scorers who have to pass the opposition to score.

However, the 4 blockers on the track for each team can use their shoulders and hips to hit the jammers out of the way and delay their progress!