Swamp City Roller Derby (formerly Swamp City Roller Rats) is a flat track roller derby league, based in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
The league was founded in March 2010, by Trudy Hannon (Joanie Trash), Kyla Sinclair (Dutch Courage), and Mindy Foothead (9 Inch Diff). In May of the same year the league had over 30 people attending practice and by January 2011 the league boasted 50 members with Diff training all new members. In late 2010, Justass took on the head coaching role for the next 8 years until it was passed to Madd Honor in 2018.
The league initially trained at Bell Hall until a new rink opened at the Palmerston North Leisureplex in January 2011. After 4 years Leisureplex closed and Swamp moved to a new home at Arena 3, CET Arena. The league was very fortunate to have Dreaded Foe who organised a permanent track later in 2015.
The Swamp Rats first competitive bout was against Mountain City Rollers and Mount Militia Derby Crew in New Plymouth in July 2011. Later, in August, Swamp hosted their first home bout, a triple-header against Taranaki Roller Corp's Rumble Bees and the Richter City Roller Derby Convicts (Richter's B team) from Wellington. Swamp City won both their bouts, with the Rumble Bees taking out their bout against the Convicts.
The league's A team was originally called The Plague. The team was later renamed the All Stars. The league also has a B team that was initially named the Poison Ivies. After a year-long hiatus in 2014 a new B team was launched in 2015 called the Badda Bings. In 2018 it was renamed Honourable Māreikura.
The first national roller derby tournament, Derby Royale, was organised by Swamp City in 2012 and had 16 teams attend. It was so successful, a second tournament was run in 2013. In 2015 Justass (head coach) organised the National Top 10 Competition which became a regular event. Swamp has competed in Top 10 since it began and has won the shield twice.
In 2020 Swamp City joined the rest of New Zealand in lock down due to Covid and missed many training sessions and games. A shorter season meant less games. However, Swamp was excited to win against Richter City All Stars for the first time in the league's history in 2020.
In 2021, Swamp City Roller Derby had 41 skaters and a full programme of bouts throughout the North Island including and pool matches for the 2021 Top Ten tournament, which was again cancelled due to Covid.
2022 was a rebuilding year for international roller derby. Meanwhile at Swamp we hosted a few bouts, and were excited to welcome international derby skater Freight Train to Papaieoa for a training day with whānau from Richter City. Swamp skaters participated in Team NZ training and selection days, a regional training day with other lower North Iand leagues, and an RDNZI run tournament. As a league we traveled away to Otautahi and Ōtepoti to play Te Waipounamu leagues, Dead End Derby and Dunedin Derby, ,and Rotorua to bout Hellmilton and Sulphur City.
'He Whānau Reti Rapa Kotahi was launched in 2023 between Swamp City and Richter City. maDD honour, Māori Vixen and our Richter City mate Tino. Here is what its all about:
We are two tīma reti rapa (roller derby teams) from Pōneke (Wellington) and Te Papaioea (Palmerston North) and we have joined forces to create our own interleague tonamana whakangahau (fun tournament) to whakanuia (celebrate) not only our awesome sport, but to whakatairanga (promote) and whakaatu ki te hapori (demonstrate) to the rest of the roller derby community in Aotearoa, the importance of encompassing mātāpono māori (māori principles) such as whanaungatanga, kotahitanga and manaakitanga within your organisation. We all should be active in working towards decolonising our leagues and making our spaces inclusive for all. Tīhei mauri ora!
During 2023, Swamp also participated in Mana Tangata o Aotearoa's wananga series hosted at various Marae to learn more about tikanga Māori, learn more about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi, and get some more good te reo Māori to use everyday.
In September 2023 we played our first WFTDA sanctioned bout against our friends at Richter City. You can view this bout that was filmed by the amazing Roller Derby Streaming NZ
2024 kicked off with two more WFTDA sanctioned bouts to finish the 2023/24 WFTDA season.
Check out our calendar for 2024 bouts
Other great stuff from Swamp:
Swamp enjoyed a trip to Surfers Paradise, Australia in 2015 to compete in the Royal Rumble tournament.
In 2016 the league rebranded and changed their name from Swamp City Roller Rats to Swamp City Roller Derby and introduced a new logo.
Swamp City skaters MaDD Honour and Justass have represented Aotearoa New Zealand as part of Team New Zealand at the Roller Derby World Cup. Swamp has skaters in the current Team New Zealand training squad.
Mana Tangata o Aotearoa, the indigenous team for Aotearoa, has Swamp skaters in its membership and as a league, we support their activities. Titiro ki Mana Tangata o Aotearoa (external link)
Swamp joined the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) in 2020, meaning they are ranked internationally.
Swamp members helped prepare the Memorial Park rink for resurfacing and two of our members were actively involved in the Palmerston North City Council project to make this happen.
Swamp has an annual intraleague game to raise funds for The Breast Cancer Foundation. This was started in 2017 after one of our members was diagnosed with breast cancer and beat it!