Telford man gets his skates on for Men's Roller Derby World Cup
He's got his skates and knee-pads and he's preparing to go to battle across the Atlantic.
A man from Telford is set to represent England in one of the world's most rapidly growing sports – roller derby.
Tom Langford, from Ketley, will travel to Calgary, Canada, with the rest of the England squad to take on athletes from Sweden, Argentina, Chile and Italy in the Men's Roller Derby World Cup.
Over the space of five years, the 32-year-old media executive has gone from watching a friend's match to travelling the world. But not only is he rapidly becoming a star international player, but he's also taking steps into coaching after being made coach of England's women's team.
The sport is particularly popular in America and was made famous worldwide with the film Whip It. Roller Derby is a contact sport where players skate around a ring, attempting to lap members of the opposing team for points. Making that more difficult are blockers, who use body contact and changing positions to try and stop the team from scoring.
Players can end up bruised and worse, but for Tom the fun more than outweighs the risks. He said: "I really love it. It was an American sport – it only came over to England about seven or eight years ago. A friend of ours had moved over from Australia and she was quite interested in getting involved. I went to watch it and I was hooked from there.
"I watched it once in Liverpool and it was brilliant. My friend had been training for quite a while and as soon as I got there, I was hooked. We discovered there was a men's team in Birmingham and that's how it started." For Tom, it was a chance to continue enjoying a hobby that many of his friends had given up on.
"I'd been skating for years, but when you get older all of your friends stop skating and skateboarding," he said. "This was a chance to carry on with that, and to get into team sports as well."
Tom, who is now sponsored by Antik Skate Boots, originally played for a team in Birmingham, but he now travels from his home in Telford to London every Saturday for an intense session of training.
Tom will leave the country on Saturday in preparation for games against Sweden, Argentina, Chile and Italy. The Men's Roller Derby World Cup involves 21 nations from around the world, competing across two tracks over four days.
But, as much as anything, it's Tom's new role as the England women's team coach that will keep him busy. He got the job after working with the Birmingham-based Central City Roller Girls. "My concentration will be very much focussed on building a women's team that I can take to the World Cup in 2017," he said.
"There's such talent in the women's game – I'm really proud to be part of that."
