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Earlier this month, we joined The London Rockin's Rollers for their end-of-season intra-league roller derby tournament at the York Hall in London's Bethnal Green, entitled Game, Set... Deathmatch.

Gory make-up, plenty of punk attitude and some fairly torturous puns at the ready, the girls donned their pads, helmets and got their skates on for a friendly-but-feisty three-team tournament that pitched regular team mates against each other in a competition that promised a mild undercurrent of needle.

Set in the historic surroundings of the York Hall, the 'Voodoo Skull Krushers', 'Goldie Lookin' Chain Gang' and the 'NeanderDolls' battled it out for post-bout bar-room bragging rights in the pub up the road afterwards.

Here's what photographer James O Jenkins made of it all:

The rules

We were warned early on not to pay too much attention to these, but the basics are as follows:

No tripping

No grabbing

No use of the elbows

No cutting the track

No skating clockwise

No insubordination

No back blocking

No clothes lining

No fighting

Teams are made up of one jammer, and four blockers.

The jammer is the glory hunter who wears a star on her helmet and scores all the points.

She skates around the track the fastest, racing against her opposite number, and barging her way through the pack of blockers, scoring points for each one of the opposing team's blockers she laps.

Both jammers can score points, but the lead jammer bosses the jam (2 min round) and can stop it at any time by slapping her hips.

As well as doing their best to obstruct the opposition's jammer, the blockers' role is to help clear the path for their own jammer.

The game is governed by five refs, who look out for the infringements listed above. Transgressors are sin-binned, which seems to happen rather a lot...

It's fast-paced and entertaining stuff, with plenty of crashes along the way - Premier League footballers could certainly learn a thing or two from this lot about staying on their feet and getting up quickly when they do get shoved to the floor. And there's certainly no back chat to the ref.

In a tense final, the Voodoo Skull Krushers narrowly beat the NeanderDolls, but the biggest celebration we saw on the day was the mass bundle that followed Goldie Lookin' Chain Gang's elimination from proceedings, heralding the news that they could start drinking!

Past and future

With its origins in the 1930s, roller derby was pretty huge back in the 1940s when big-money backers attracted huge crowds in cities across America. The sport then lost its way when scripted sports entertainment ideas, more akin to WWE wrestling than competitive sport, began to creep in.

Nowadays, modern roller derby is played seriously in about 1400 amateur leagues around the world, and is organised at grassroots level by the players themselves.

They've kept colourful uniforms and the silly names for players and teams, but other than that, it's a serious amateur sport, which is hoping for inclusion in the 2020 Olympics.

We'd strongly advise checking it out as it's pretty good fun to watch, and looks great to play.

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Find out more about the London Rockin' Rollers here.

The roller derby league will be running a 'Fresh Meat' intake for new skaters in February 2013 and are always looking for Non Skating Officials and Refs.

Email recruitment@londonrockinrollers.co.uk to find out how to get involved.

For more information about roller derby around world, visit the Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association.