Haunted City History

Haunted City's History

We have grown from a fledgling league to having over 50 skaters and officials. This is our story.

Our Timeline

2011

York Minxters Roller Derby first founded as a competitive WFTDA team with our first session 25th September 2011!

2012

York Minxters got its first logo! Named Erica!

2013

The first Minxter closed outing! It was against Spa Town Roller Derby with the score 140-242 for Spa Town.

2014

Our very first open bout against Riverside Rebels Roller Derby. Sadly the result has been lost to the mists of time. Later that year, Erica evolved.

2016

York Minxters officially joined the UK Roller Derby Association. Later that year the Minxters had their first co-ed scrim, where male-identified skaters could play.

2017

The team played our first ever British Championship match! In Tier 4, Round 3, we played Wakey Wheeled Cats, and we were featured in York Press

2018

OTA team Monsters created and York Minxters Win the Team/Club of the Year in the Active York Awards 2018

2019

Founded Yorkshire Terrors Junior Roller Derby for young derby players aged 8-17. The foundation of the Yorkshire Terrors was made possible by an amazing £2000 of funding from the Postcode Community Trust - a grant-giving organisation funded entirely by players of the People's Postcode Lottery

2023

We were delighted to be featured by YorkMix on their Grassroots Sports page! YorkMix radio came along to our Thursday night training and got a quick explanation of the game from Minxters Captain Em-Rah and Chair Gem.

2024

The league underwent a rebrand and became Haunted City Roller Derby!

Rebrand

The rebrand was done with a few aims in mind: to make the league more inclusive and less gendered, to delineate between the league and the teams that operate within it, and to create a league with a cohesive identity across the teams.

Between February and July 2024, the committee decided on Haunted City Roller Derby and the shiny new logo, and the teams voted on the new names: Wraiths (WFTDA), Phantoms (OTA), and Terrors (Juniors). The rebrand was officially launched in August 2024, and we hope you like our new look as much as we do!

At our inception Roller Derby was an emerging sport and the growth of the league has been an amazing success over the years.

When the first few league members turned up to a sports hall on day one no one knew the rules, but with the support of the derby community in the UK and further afield we grew into a family of skaters, and competed against like-minded teams across the country.

Many of us couldn't skate, or would even have claimed to be sporty before joining the league; as such we welcome and encourage anyone who is prepared to become a contributing member of our team to train with us – we can teach you everything you need to know.

Haunted City Rollers

The name Haunted City Roller Derby might be familiar to you, as there was another UK roller deryby team called Haunted City Rollers, based in Derby, and active from 2012 to 2018.

You can find out more about them on their instagram page along with their Stats and Promo video