Top Scottish roller derby team ‘thrilled’ at Meadowbank stadium homecoming

Skaters at one of Europe’s top roller derby teams have said they are “thrilled” to be returning to play at their former home track in Edinburgh, amid a “resurgence” of the sport in Scotland.

Auld Reekie Roller Derby (ARRD) will host a number of international teams at Meadowbank Sports Centre across the weekend of February 21 and 22, in a tournament aptly named Homecoming 2026.

The fixtures will mark the first time the team has played at the venue for nearly a decade, when the old sports centre was closed for demolition and a new one built in its place.

In the years since Meadowbank closed, ARRD, whose A-team is ranked number one in Scotland, 5th in the UK and 21st in Europe, has played its home matches in Dalkeith, some distance from the city centre, which has made it difficult to host high-profile international fixtures.

On its website ARRD describes roller derby as “a fast-paced contact team sport that requires speed, strategy, and athleticism”, and the team open to “any individual of a marginalised gender”, including women and trans people.

The sport is played indoors on an oval track between two teams of five skaters, with one skater on each side – the “jammer” – scoring points each time they lap members of the opposing team.

ARRD and Team Scotland head coach Leanne Little, who played for ARRD for 16 years after helping found it in 2008, said the news of their return to Meadowbank was met with “a lot of nostalgia and a lot of excitement”.

“People have started posting old pictures and memories of games that got played, because there were such great moments there,” she said.

“We played British champs there, we won a trophy there, we used to have a bar at some of the games, which was great for people.”

She said games at Meadowbank used to draw “huge crowds” because of its central location and the quality of its facilities, and the team was hoping for similar scenes at the tournament later this month.

This was echoed by ARRD A-team co-captain Sasha de Buyl, who said the team had been “really bummed” when the sports centre closed.

“It had been our home game venue since the the league started almost 20 years ago, and we had a very loyal audience there, and people really associated the team with that venue,” they said.

“We’re just really thrilled to be to be back there and playing our first game there in maybe close to eight years.”

Like all roller derby clubs ARRD has also had to recover from the “devastating” impact of the Covid pandemic, during which the entire sport shut down for 18 months.

“A few hundred” players left the sport in Scotland, and the number of clubs, or leagues, fell from 27 to just 10, many either merging or disbanding altogether.

Ms Little said since undergoing a “phased return” the sport was now growing once again.

“I think we’re building, but I think we’re building in a different way, and I think priorities have changed for some clubs,” she said.

“I actually think (the pandemic) gave everybody in the sport a chance to sit back and replan, what do we want out of this sport, you know, do we need to be training five nights a week?

“Can we shuffle things around? Have a proper season, have breaks?

“And certainly for Auld Reekie, I think we’ve built in a more considered programme of training for three teams.”

ARRD C-team co-captain Zoe Usher, who has been skating for about four years, said: “I think there is a real resurgence.

“Hearing how things were pre-Covid and how things are back growing post-Covid, I think there’s a real sense that things are building, things are coming back.”

During Homecoming 2026 ARRD will host teams from Madrid, Marseilles and London, in what the promotional material describes as “more than competition – it’s a homecoming. A return to our roots. A chance to write the next chapter in the very place our story began”.

For further information about the event, and to buy tickets, visit https://www.universe.com/events/homecoming-tournament-tickets-Q7XGCY.