Arrg...

Sounds like the sound they make when they come a cropper at the hands of their opponents but it actually stands for Auld Reekie Roller Girls, a roller derby league from Edinburgh.

We went to see our first live Roller Derby bout today. Mrs TFP has taken it up and so wanted to see what an actual bout was like.

I read a newspaper article the other day that described it as a series of fast moving gang muggings on wheels. That's pretty much a close approximation with a few rules wrapped around it. There is one person on each team (the jammer) that starts a quarter lap behind everyone else. They score points for every person on the opposing team they lap after they pass them the first time. Everyone else's job is to either assist their jammer round the oval track and to block the opposing jammer's route past them.

It was a bit loud for the kids but this meant I got to watch the match from right at the back and see everything going on.