By Benjamin Millar
The Westside Derby Dollz are really on a roll.
Training out of RecWest at West Footscray and rolling since 2012, the Dollz are the only mixed gender roller derby league in the west of Melbourne.
Club president Jessie-Rose Hunt (alias ‘Massica Jones’) said the club is coming off an amazing run of success, winning every match in the year-long Statewide Stampede tournament.
The club continued its winning ways by finishing ahead of about 30 other teams to take out its division in the Great Southern Slam, the largest roller derby tournament in the southern hemisphere.
Hunt said she had never been interested in team sports until joining the Dollz about three years ago.
“As cliched as it sounds, it is really the community that has kept me going,” she said.
Participants come from all walks fo life, from art teachers to prison officers and everything in between.
“We have people from 18 years all the way up to their mid-50s,” Hunt said.
The club will be launching its first Home Team Season this Sunday, holding its first a come-and-try day of the year the following weekend.
Hunt said the success has been welcome, but the Westside Derby Dollz are first and foremost a recreational league.
“We have training three nights a week, but you don’t have to join every session,” she said.
“This is literally a place for everyone.”
Details: facebook.com/WestSideDerbyDollz
