IT’S fast, violent, glamorous, dangerous and played almost exclusively by women.

Roller derby is one of the fastest growing sports in the world – although few people in this country have heard of it.

But a new south coast team is set to change all that.

The Portsmouth Roller Wenches features women from across the region, including a posse of Southampton racers.

It was launched at the end of summer. The girls aren’t ready to start competing yet but they already have some 30 team members and hundreds of fans on Facebook.

The training session looks like a combination of a sexy, punky burlesque show and a game of British Bulldog on skates.

Roller derbies originated in America as endurance races. In the 30s, competitors started knocking each other off the course and the derbies began.

They were revived in the 70s as theatrical shows, similar to wrestling but the sport, in it’s current competitive form, has been growing in popularity worldwide since around 2001 and was given a big boost from Drew Barrymore’s film Whip It, which hit UK screens last year.

It’s a genuine full contact sport but with a big dollop of camp fun.

Tattoos, piercing, heavy make-up and fishnets are the classic roller derby look, but anything goes. The Portsmouth Roller Wenches range from a 16- year-old who trains but isn’t old enough to compete, to a woman in her mid-40s and are all shapes, sizes and looks.

Oh, and there’s even a man.

“We’ve got a complete mix, you can be anything you want,”

says Hannah Pinchin, a 29- year-old PhD student from Southampton, who skates under the name Hanoffee Pie.

“But you’ve got to train. If you just turn up for the fashion aspect you’re going to get very hurt.You have to be able to take knocks.”

The one thing that everyone is wearing is safety gear.

If you’re not wearing a helmet, wrist guards, knee and elbow pads, you don’t take part.

During the training session, coach Ali Ceppi warns the girls to keep their elbows in – so their ribs don’t get broken. The aim of the game is for a point scorer – called a jammer – from each team to race around an oval track, picking up points for every member of the other team she passes.

The remaining four team members are blockers, whose job it is to stop the opposing jammer from getting past while helping their own jammer pick up speed.

This is where things can get violent. Competitors use their bodies to knock their opponents to the floor, which at the speeds they are going, can be pretty rough.

The Portsmouth Roller Wenches have been training for less than six months and have already clocked up two broken coccyxes, a broken wrist and numerous strains and bruises.

Michelle, 37, from Bitterne, is thinking about being a skating referee as she has a bad back but the rest of them aren’t overly concerned about getting hurt.

KAnd, despite the violence, the girls are all the best of friends. In fact, it’s the social aspect that attracts many people to the sport.

Lizzie Pikesley, a care assistant from Southampton, thought it looked like great fun and joined the team in the summer.

“I haven’t skated since I was really little and I’m not very good but everyone’s really nice about it,” says the 23-year-old, who skates under the name Caprica Kicks.

“It’s a bit different and it’s really social.”

Mariah Smith, 30, an interior designer, specifically sought out a roller derby team to join to make friends when she moved to Chandler’s Ford from America year and a half ago.

“I trained for a derby in America and I was in a band that played at a lot of roller derby bouts and parties so I knew a lot of people,” says Mariah, aka Yankee Doodle Deadly.

“This was a good way for me to make friends and do something social because I’d gone from knowing lots of people to knowing no one.”

On the weekend I meet the roller derby team they have already had three socials and have one planned for after the session.

“It makes it a lot easier to knock someone over if you know them!” says Hannah.

All of the women emphasise the community element to the team. There’s a strong DIY element to this and many roller derby teams – it is run by the skaters themselves. They make their own costumes, lend kit to each other and make their decisions collectively.

You don’t even have to skate competitively to be part of the team. Men and women can be skating or non-skating officials, and there are other roles such as ‘jeer leaders’ for anyone who can’t take the knocks.

Roller derby seems to appeal on many levels.

Leah Robinson, 24, a mental health support worker, says: “There’s a fun element to it but it’s also about feminism and punk rock. It’s celebrating womanhood and what women achieve and shows that women are just as tough as men.”

One of the fun elements is the playful air of menace.

The girls have meansounding names – today’s coach, NewYorker Ali Ceppi, skates as The Duchess of Crutches and jokily warns “you get three hits: I hit you, you hit the floor, the ambulance hits 90!”. Other team members include I.C. Hell, Cherry Massacre, R.I.P McMurphy and Rivas Bodily Harm.

But like pantomime baddies, it’s clear they don’t really mean it and knocking someone to the ground so violently that they break something doesn’t actually mean the girls aren’t the best of friends.

The Portsmouth Roller Wenches haven’t even started skating competitively and they’ve already got hundreds of fans. And roller derby’s unique combination of glamour, sass, aggression and fun it’s easy to see why.

A gentle skate round the park will never seem the same again.

■ For more details, visit portsmouthrollerwenches.com or their Facebook page.