Inside the Badass World of British Roller Derby

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

There is a romance in Brighton. A cracked and tatty picture of Englishness long eschewed by the boutique destinations dotted along the country's southern coast. A businessman clutches a handheld radio and drinks cans of supermarket larger on the beach. He is laughing heartily along to Radio 4. Seagulls – the latest scourge of the British summertime – are scrapping for the carcass of a roast chicken. The noise is unholy. Hellish, like the screeches of the festooned hen party marching on the prom. Garish, but nothing on the creatine-pumped pecs of Gary's stags, who are prowling the pebbles like a horny Serengeti pride.

The morning sun begins to fry the necks of the pasty invaders ambling down the Queen's Road. Men hold hands with men. Women gently caress the cheeks of their girlfriends. Openly. Publicly. There are no sideways glances, no judgmental whispers. You are who you are.

This ethos – official or otherwise – also manifests itself on the outskirts of town. In an innocuous looking leisure centre familiar to any suburbanite, yellow-and-black tape is being rolled along a floor that usually plays host to five-a-side football. The tape marks out the oval course for a sport best-known to those who have exhausted their Netflix account and are left with the options of a third run through Breaking Bad or of reluctantly watching Whip It, a charming but overly saccharine whizz through the world of roller derby.

Danielle Leggett, or Dr Hooligan, is sitting in the bleachers attentively watching women glide through the hall on roller skates. A gaggle of patient referees are chatting in the corner. For some reason, Muse are shrieking through the PA. "The league was started five years ago on Valentine's Day in a pub by some Brighton girls who didn't have a sport but had discovered roller derby," she says. "They put an ad in the local paper and got a lot of other girls who also didn't play mainstream sports. No one really knew what they were doing."

Explaining the rules of roller derby is not an easy task. There have been more concise dossiers on the Iraq War than the 66-page rulebook the sport's governing body, the WFTDA, offers. Nonetheless:

• There are blockers (defenders) and jammers (forwards)
• Blockers attempt to prevent the opposing team's jammer from breaching their defensive line while simultaneously bidding to make space for their own jammer to pirouette, barge or skip through their opponents' blocker line
• Referees, of which there are many at any one time, track jammers and blockers. They signal a breach and award points
• If a referee spots an infringement a restart, or jam, takes place

To make complete sense in one afternoon of what is happening is to flirt with madness.

"There's a role for everyone. The tiny little ones, the big ones. There's always a place for a massive girl at the back," Leggett says.

There is a perceived stereotype. There is little point shying away from it. The WWE-style make-up and personas that inform the amateur ranks of the sport lend the players a kitschy fierceness. Pand' Assassin's facepaint resembles Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas and she seems to spend most of her time in the sin-bin. She is a classic sporting villain. Like Roy Keane, Martin Johnson or Ric Flair, she makes use of chicanery and intimidation, but she is also some distance ahead of her peers in terms of ability.

Leggett disputes the generalised view of roller derby girls. "We've got a new mother who skates with a hard bra… there is a lady who started life as a male. Another is very, very, short… there are plenty of people on our team without a single tattoo."

The centre's bleachers are filling with friends, family and spectators The leader of the Brighton Rockers fanclub is casually leaning against a wall. He is wearing an army helmet with a Fischer-Price rollerskate stuck to it.

Cleo Slayer, a day-to-day NHS worker originally from Newcastle, rests her leg on the back of a chair. Despite being in a cast she has made the trip down to watch her London teammates take on the Royal Windor Rollergirls. It's the second time she has suffered the injury, she says. "I went in to hit a girl and she fell on top of me and took my legs out." Slayer is alarmingly chirpy as she explains her injury with gory precision.

"Me and my mate bought a pair of skates and realised we couldn't do it because we weren't five anymore, so we went for lessons. Then we Googled and found roller derby. She thought it was amazing but I said, 'No, I'm not doing that. Don't be stupid. No. No. No'." Two avulsion fractures later she could be considered an old hand.

The opening bout – to give a roller derby match its correct title – comes to an end. London have suffered a heavy defeat to Windsor. There is an exodus from the stands to the floor and a congratulatory circle is formed. Both teams perform a lap of honour, high-fiving each other and spectators as they go. Almost immediately, the Londoners emerge with several bottles of prosecco and pop them open.

Brighton are out soon after to take on their seaside rivals, the Portsmouth Roller Wenches. The cast of names includes Skate Bush, Gin Atomic and Awsome Wells. If nothing else, this is a sport for a tabloid sub-editor.

The head referee, Mike Williams, is about to cover his Cannabis Corpse t-shirt with a striped one. "Occasionally, there is some usual resentment towards the referee. Generally, it's amusing… I just think, 'I'm going to give them another penalty'."

Roller derby referee is not an obvious calling. Williams was encouraged to take up the role by Cake or Death, a Brighton skater. "I got bored of going to that same party over and over again for the past 10 years, so this is a little different… if [my friends] say, 'Come on, you said you'd do this thing', I just tell them, 'You do realise I'm going to the pub with 200 women afterwards'."

Brighton and Portsmouth are lined up. The onsite paramedics, idle to this point, couldn't seem more non-plussed. The bout springs into life, with Portsmouth running into an 11-point lead. Brighton claw their way back to come within two. It is as close as they will come though. The Roller Wenches are too wily for them. They block with more intensity, skate with more precision and are incapable of sympathy.

Gin Atomic, though… She is the Rockers' answer to Steven Gerard. An indefatigable winner in a side doomed to defeat. Atomic purls her own path through a seemingly impenetrable wall of elbows and knees. The English-American duo providing endearingly cheesy in-house commentary have their young minds temporarily blown when Atomic cuts a corner by leaping out of bounds only to touch down within and add more points to her hefty tally in the process.

Despite the best efforts of a player whose signature facepaint is two dramatic blotches of running mascara, this will not be Brighton's day.

Atomic's bleached hair rustles in the wind. There can't be many sportspeople who play with a septum ring. Her passion for the game is not dampened by loss; she has gained too much already. She left Croydon for Brighton because of roller derby. She met her boyfriend through it. The sport offered her a "life-changing" experience that no other could.

"Games like today is what it's all for. Big, hard-fought games. It's wicked. So much fun. Are you coming to the afterparty?"

And to a beer garden on the London Road we go. All four teams, referees and well-wishers are gathered. Atomic leads the festivities. Doughnuts swinging from a clothesline must be eaten without using hands. Cheers. Beers to winners, beers to the losers. Primark knickers must be worn over jeans, no idea why. More cheers. More beers for the winners, more beers for the losers.

The 100-strong legion of goths, mods, rockers, skins and others that created the kaleidoscopic tapestry of the day's event are notable not necessarily for their differences but for their cohesion. Most here – however unlikely – have forged a shared sporting identity. Most here know that winning matters, but belonging matters more.

@morethanaphelan