Edel (far left with white helmet) has been a Brawler since she joined our first full recruitment day early in 2011. She’s a regular member of the Brawlers B teams and recently co-captained the team in their victory over the Cork Firebirds (who hail from her home town!).

When she’s not focussing on her own skating Edel is coaching and motivated our junior team, the Tiger Bay Cubs, having been the driving force behind starting a junior team.

You can catch Edel in action when our B team take on Liverpool Roller Birds and our Cubs play again in an awesome double header later this month. In the meantime, find out more about her below…

It’s been a crazy few weeks with a whole lot of announcements so here’s a round up to make sure you don’t miss out on anything!

1. We’re now a full WFTDA league!

The announcement came on 6 June and we are delighted to have completed the WFTDA Apprentice Program and graduated as full WFTDA members. We’re now able to compete in sanctioned games and are eligible for the WFTDA rankings, which is a huge deal. 

Check out the press release here: http://brawlers.co.uk/press-release-tiger-bay-brawlers-graduate-to-full-wftda-membership/

Check out all the full WFTDA announcement here to see the other awesome leagues we’re joining: http://wftda.com/news/wftda-welcomes-first-full-member-leagues-in-asia-and-south-america

2. Double header - Tiger Bay B team vs. Liverpool Roller Birds, plus Tiger Bay Cubs second bout!

Join us in Newport on Sunday 23 June as our B team face Liverpool Roller Birds - this is sure to be an exciting bout and the B team are out for another win after their formidable victory vs. Cork last month.

The event will be opened by our junior league who are eager to show what they’ve been upto since they last bouted in December.

Tickets are limited to just 200 for this event so snap yours up now via the website: http://tbb-tickets.fikket.com/event/tiger-bay-brawlers-b-team-vs-liverpool-roller-birds-the-tiger-bay-cubs

3. Tiger Bay Brawlers (mini) bootcamp and scrimmage

Following the success of our last open scrimmage day we are once again opening the doors to invite other leagues along to play against us and one another. This time we’re adding in some skills and drills too to really maximise the training experience. 

Tickets are available for both on-skate and off-skate participation and you can choose the skill level to suit you so check out all of the information via our Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/208975009251300/

thegifofderby:

Lola has been a Brawler since she joined our first ever open session back in April 2010. She’s been a member of both our A and B teams and has taken turns at Co-Captaining both. 

Off skate Lola is a member of the PR team and manages the social media aspect of the Brawlers. So yes, she is now awkwardly writing this profile about herself in the third person! Read more about Lola in her own words below…

SAVE THE DATE - Sunday 23 June 2013!

Next month we’re hosting a super exciting event in the Newport Centre involving both the awesome Tiger Bay Brawlers B team + the Tiger Bay Cubs, our fantastic junior team.

So here’s the details you need for now…

When? Sunday 23 June 2013, times TBC

Where? Newport Centre

Capacity for this event will be limited to just 200 tickets, so keep an eye on our website and social media channels to snap yours up as soon as tickets go on sale!

In the meantime, grab a permanent marker and pop it into your diary and calendar so you don’t forget…

mynameiskid:

Knowing when to ‘give up’ on the jammer is a really valuable skill to have and is something that we train to recognise at the Tiger Bay Brawlers. A lot of blockers don’t like to be seen to ‘give up’ (understandably so) and they believe that the jammer chase out front shows determination and…

Did she actually just sat that “sometimes it’s okay to give up”? Yep, you bet she did. Check out this fab post to find out why

Lessons learnt….

As myself and Tiger Bay wind down after our first ever tournament (2013: A Skate Odyssey, hosted by the wonderful Gent Go-Go Rollergirls) I have been pondering over the events of the weekend and thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you guys.

“I am not a jammer. I am a blocker who occasionally jams.”

This has been my ‘go to’ response to ‘what position do you play?’ ever since I started competing in roller derby.  I do enjoy jamming, but I enjoy blocking more.  I do think I’m a fairly good jammer, but I believe I’m a much better blocker…

The Tiger Bay Brawlers have finished second place in a European roller derby tournament, their first tournament outside of the UK

Nice article from our local newspaper about last weekend’s pretty damn successful weekend in Gent!

Thanks everyone for lovely messages and support. We’ve been pretty overwhelmed and overcome with emotion.

We at Brawler HQ just wanted to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who has supported our fundraising efforts for this weekend’s tournament - 2013: A Skate Odyssey.

The Brawler bus leaves Cardiff tomorrow morning at 7am so before we all start packing and get in some early nights we just wanted to share how extremely grateful we are for all of your donations and support throughout all of our activities - the sponsored skate, the website, the birthday party, hiring our coaches - every single penny has helped us and makes the difference between some skaters being able to come or not, which is an enormous deal both to them as individuals and us as a league.

When we worked out how much we needed to get the whole team to Gent - especially so close to our last visit - we knew the target would be ambitious, but we have been absolutely floored by your generosity. As we write this post we’ve raised 87% of the £5000 target we set, which is just amazing.

So thank you everyone - we really do appreciate it. We are absolutely overwhelmed and hope we do you proud on track all weekend.

With thanks and love, Tiger Bay Brawlers xx

Yesterday the Tiger Bay Brawlers braved the rain to attempt their 366 mile skate-athon to raise funds to help us get to Gent for next months 2013:A Skate Odyssey. Armed with bags of determination and enthusiasm we set off, ignoring the pools of water around the velodrome. We slid, we slipped, and…