Following on from his
earlier report, and with the much anticipated LRG v Gotham game fast
approaching, JIM SQUIDGE of Derby Dot Communists revisits his interviewees to
talk about the additional ticket sale and recently announced food/drink restrictions...
"I managed to get the extra tickets I was after,"
beams Happily Eva Shafter of Five Girls One Sidcup. "I hired a team of
cryptologists who decoded the text on a 15th Century tapestry of St Nullam de
Cylindros in Leeds Cathedral. It revealed a secret web address where tickets to
the game were available, with no limits, an hour before the official public
sale. My guys said they encountered several other cryptologists in the Cathedral,
some hired by skaters from as far away as St Petersburg, Vienna and Barnsley,
so I'd be surprised if there were any tickets left for the general
public."
"I can't believe anyone waited for the public sale
though," Eva continues. "Everybody knows Seetickets conceal the links
to their presales within tapestries stitched by Benedictine monks in 1430s
Bohemia. The folk who missed out probably had people trying to decipher the hieroglyphics
on Mayan statues, but only Ticketmaster use those nowadays." Eva admits
that she actually ended up with more tickets than she wanted: "My hand
slipped when I was ordering, so I bought 13 tickets rather than just the three
I needed. I'm thinking of giving the spare ones to the local orphanage at
Christmas. You've got to do your bit, haven't you?"
Wicca Wicca Whack of the Doncaster Boudiccas was also in
luck second time around. "I managed to get two tickets," she tells
us, "one for my physical form and one for my aura. After all the trouble I
had last time, when I entered my title as 'Ms' and they made out all the
tickets had gone, this time I tried a little experiment. I entered my title as
'Mr' and, lo and behold, I got tickets! Coincidence, or evidence of a
patriarchal conspiracy at the heart of UK event ticketing? I think we all know
the answer to that."

Not everyone was as lucky as Eva and Whack. Legendary derby
announcer Hector Cocoa missed out once again. "I only wanted one
ticket," he moans. Was he logged on to Seetickets the moment they went on
sale? "Oh, I didn't go on there at all. They were asking for money for
them, and I don't really think it's right to ask for money. That's against the
whole spirit of roller derby. I was hoping they'd just send me one."
At least Mr Cocoa can comfort himself with the fact that the
event is being streamed online: "I was checking in every day when Derby
Duck were trying to raise crowdfunding for the stream. I couldn't believe how
slowly the total was rising. I was really worried they wouldn't raise enough,
so I badgered all my friends to donate, and even started phoning random mobile
numbers and swearing down the phone at whoever answered until they agreed to
put in a couple of quid." We ask Hector how much he donated towards the
stream himself, and he looks at us like we're insane. "Nothing, obviously,
but I'm doing my bit in other ways."
When asked to explain, Hector says that he will be showing
the game on a plasma screen in his living room. "Spread the word," he
tells us, "everyone's invited. This is me giving something back to the
derby community. I'm only charging a fiver admission. Ten quid if you want to
sit down. That stream better damn well not drop out, or there will be a lot of
very angry people in my house, and I'll be directing them straight towards
Derby Duck and LRG for refunds. I'm expending a lot of effort into putting this
on. I've even hoovered – well, my mum has. I'll be doing cans of Stella and
mini tubes of Pringles for four quid each, and at half time I'll be auctioning
off Rogue Runner's autograph. Well, I say it's her autograph. I've been told we
have very similar handwriting."

Whilst the Stella and Pringles at Hector's house sound
tempting, food options for those attending the game venue itself could be far
more limited, with the shocking announcement that Brawling v Gotham will be the
first sporting event in British history for which people can't bring in their
own food and drink. "I was flabbergasted when I heard," says Happily
Eva Shafter. "The only times I've ever previously left my house have been
to attend the opera at Glyndebourne, and there's never been any problem there
with our butlers bringing in hampers full of food, bone china crockery, bottles
of 1956 Veuve Clicquot, freshly strangled swans, and so forth."
"Some years we've even taken along our own chefs and an
AGA oven," Eva adds. "Glyndebourne have always been more than happy
to run a gas pipe from the manor house to the AGA, so we can enjoy our freshly
cooked dinner on the lawns. Is it asking too much to expect the same sort of
courtesy from the Leeds Footsore, or whatever the silly place is called?"
Eva's dealings with the venue have, it seems, proved somewhat frustrating: "They
say they're providing suitable catering, but when I rang them to ask whether
their foie gras was from ducks or geese, the Northerner who answered couldn't
give me a straight answer, and just kept saying 'serving piazza'. It's nice to
know that we'll be able to eat on an Italian-style city square, but I'm more
interested in what we'll be eating?
If they run out of filet mignon, I can see the whole crowd rioting."
Wicca Wicca Whack, meanwhile, is concerned the available
food selection won't meet her dietary requirements. "I can only eat food
that's been harvested on the New Moon," she tells us, "by naked
druids on unconsecrated ground within 200 yards of a ley line. I've repeatedly
asked LRG and Futsal for a full list of available foods that meet my
requirements, and all I've heard back from them is that the lettuce in the vegan
salad comes from Somerset. It's all very well catering for mainstream fads like
veganism, but what about my teammate Pasty Child, who is ovo-lacto-pesce-vege-bovo-porcine-meli-pollo-fruto-gluto-herbo-grebo-turbo-oboe-alco-fresco-terra-tesco-dairylea-placebo
intolerant. She can only eat lightly salted air, basically. Futsal just laughed
when I told them."

Some fans are reportedly adopting extreme measures to try
and smuggle in their own food. Referee Sock Rocket from the Inverness Invaders,
who managed to get a ticket at the second time of asking, still hopes that
Stefanie Mainey and Suzy Hotrod will perform a special demonstration of
shoulder blocking just for him. "Perhaps during half-time," he says,
"I've already committed to giving them a Pot Noodle each if they do."
Is Sock worried by all the talk of Futsal introducing bag checks, X-rays, strip
searches and sniffer dogs to prevent people taking food or drink in? "Yes
and no. I've heard the sniffer dogs have only been taught to find cupcakes and
Haribo," insists Sock, "and I'm confident I've worked out a way of
getting these two Pot Noodles – plus the kettle – into the venue upon my person."
He's unwilling to elaborate further, explaining that "Stef and Suzy
probably wouldn't want them if they knew where they'd been."
Crazyface Wilkins of the Chester Cakekickers, meanwhile,
plans to fill her hollow wooden leg with "healthy snacks such as wholemeal
flapjacks, carrot sticks and gin". "That's if I get a wooden leg in
time," she adds, "the waiting list for unnecessary amputations on the
NHS is horrendous." Whilst the
four hour duration of the event (or 90 minutes if just the Gotham game) might
seem a period many people could go without food for, Crazyface insists that
"like most rollergirls, I have to eat every 27 minutes, and drink gin
every 11 minutes, or I get the wiggles."
Ticketless Devon derby fan Kate Isosceles had already
intended to style her hair into the shape of a Mr Whippy ice cream (in order to
try and pass herself off as Raw Heidi and get in for free). Now she intends to
kill two birds with one stone, and wear an actual Mr Whippy on her head, hoping
that the temperature in the venue is low enough for it to still be edible at
half time. She's worried that the chocolate flake may arouse suspicions during
security checks, though. Lady Goodslider of the Pencilcity Devilwhores,
meanwhile, insists that "bag searches are illegal unless carried out by
the SAS after the deployment of tear gas. I read it on the internet. If the
Futsal staff try to search mine, I'll simply refuse. What are they going to do
then? It's not like they can refuse me admission. I've got a ticket."
A quarter of a mile West of the Futsal Arena itself, we drop
in on a house in Cottingley that Redditch Ratbiters duo Twisty O'Turnip and
Pass-Ag-E have rented in the run-up to the Gotham game. There's no sign of
them, and all the fixtures and furnishings are covered in several inches of soil.
In the basement we find a small opening around two feet wide. We can hear the
distant sound of digging and call into it. Several minutes later Twisty
emerges, followed by Pass. Covered from head to toe in dirt and earthworms,
they both look like they haven't slept or seen daylight in weeks, something
they confirm to be the case. Twisty also has several chunks missing from her
arm.
"We're still on course to emerge from our tunnel right
under the bleachers just in time for first whistle," she says, with what
looks like a smile, but turns out to be a worm she's chewing on. "Futsal is directly North of here, isn't
it?" As Pass bites another chunk out of Twisty's arm, we learn their
digging schedule allows no time to prepare or eat normal food. They admit to be
living primarily off what they can scavenge. Clearly the venue's controversial food
and drink restrictions will not be an issue for this particular pair, but we
wonder how close they came to getting tickets when the extra batch went on
sale.
"Extra tickets? What extra tickets?" blusters
Twisty, pausing only to cough up a beetle. "We've been underground for
nearly a month now, and haven't heard about anything, roller derby related or
otherwise, that's gone on in the outside world." She breaks into a
non-worm chewing smile. "It will all be worth it in the end, though. Not
only will we get to see the game – if we're tunnelling in the right direction –
but Lead Jammer magazine are
interested in doing an article about us."
Spare tickets, mainly
singles, continue to crop up on occasion on the London v Gotham Facebook event
page. The game will be streamed by Derby Duck Productions, with the URL to be
posted soon by LRG. A number of screening parties are taking place, including
one at a roller disco in a Napoleonic fort (part of the Eastbourne Extreme derby
tournament) and the one at Hector Cocoa's house. Hector stresses that you can't
bring your own food and drink, and full cavity searches will be taking place.