2017 Preview - Return of the Banditas!

We're back! 2017 sees us return to the Third Tier of the British Champs along with some familiar faces and some new opponents. We spent our year in Tier Four re-grouping, re-building and concentrating on working as a team. All our hard work paid off with a second placing in Tier 4 North and promotion to where we began our British Champs adventure - Tier 3 North!

We are so e excited to be challenging ourselves with the high caliber of teams that join us in the table. This year we will be facing North Wales Roller Derby, Auld Reekie Roller Girls Reserves, a new look Furness Firecrackers, last year's Tier 4 North 3rd place team Spa Town Roller Derby and our old table friends for the third year running, Granite City Roller Derby. 

But before Champs gets under way we have a friendly bout lined up against Rebellion Roller Derby as part of the incredibly exciting Roller Derby Rumble at the Tattoo Freeze convention in Telford. The convention takes place on Sunday 29th January at the Telford International Centre and features 4 roller derby games in all including Manchester's Checkerbroads v Nottingham Roller Derby, Wolverhampton Honour Rollers v Furness Firecrackers and Bristol Roller Derby v Cambridge Rollerbillies. For more information check out the Events Page and the next article due out tomorrow!

The 2017 Champs season kicks off with a trip to Preston to play familiar faces Granite City Roller Derby on the 26th February. Furness Firecrackers are hosting this first double-header bout which will also feature the hosts playing North Wales Roller Derby. At the third times of facing the team from Aberdeen we are keen to improve our performance against the Tier 4 North winners for a third year running and fight to take the victory!

With a bye in the second round, our second Champs game takes place in Aberdeen. In this double-header we take on the Furness Firecrackers while hosts Granite play against Scottish rivals Auld Reekie Reserves. Furness Firecrackers has an unfortunate 2016. Venue issues and other things unfortunately led Furness to forfeit their 2016 Champs dates so they could re-build and focus on making the league stronger (we know what that's like!). Now, they are back to show the Champs what they've got and we couldn't be more thrilled to play them again. 

On 21st May we host the fourth round of the competition in Halifax which will see another double-header take place. Spa Town Roller Derby will face Auld Reekie Reserves while we will play North Wales Roller Derby. We have never played North Wales before and are excited to play against some new opponents. This is one of the reasons we love the British Champs, its pits us against teams we might never have played otherwise. Currently we are extremely close in the Flat Track Stats rankings so this should prove to be a really exciting bout.

Next we take a trip to Edinburgh to play the Auld Reekie Reserves on the 2nd July. Auld Reekie are one of the best teams in the UK so their Reserves will prove to be a tough challenge in our Champs campaign. The other game of the double-header will see a Tier 4 repeat as Spa Town will play Granite City.

We have another bye in round 5 which means our last game of Champs will take place in the massive triple-header game on the 12th August. We will play Spa Town Roller Derby and we are keen to overturn last year's close loss tho them! The day will also see North Wales play Auld Reekie Reserves and Furness Firecrackers take on Granite City.

Along with this mammoth campaign to take back Tier 3 North we also have a lot of off-track activity planned. We are kicking off a New Skater Intake programme on the 9th February, check out the Facebook group to keep up with the details! We also plan to take part in the Halifax Charity Gala again in June and race in a Skate Marathon in May. Keep an eye on our Events page and the Facebook page for up to date information.

2017 is shaping up to be an important and challenging year for the Bruising Banditas and we feel more than ready to face it! We couldn't do this without the support of our volunteers, loved ones and fan. Thank you for joining us in the new year, let take on this adventure together!

Banditas….AVE IT!!