First Games

Castro Valley High School football field.  It was where this blogger saw his first Roller Derby game.
 

It had been a couple of years since seeing the initial game on television.  One of the things that I learned in the first year was that things change from year to year.  It was March of 1963 when viewing for the first time.

By the time seeing my first game in August 1965, my favorite skater, Annis Jensen, left the San Francisco Bay Bombers.  Late the previous year folowing the IRDL playoffs, Jensen left to skate for the San Francisco Shamrocks of the National Skating Derby (or what was known as Roller Games).  They would be an expansion team beginning their first year.  Several other former IRDL stars such as Joe Foster, Bobby Seever, Jerri Abbatello and Ann Calvello were now Shamrocks.

 

Being young and not knowing what was happening, Jensen was replaced after the 1964 season by the Bombers, probably by Seltzer.  The team was getting older and he felt it needed to get younger.  Jensen chose not to go on a season ending tour because she wanted to take care of her family.  Also, Joe Foster, a top skater for the Bombers, got married in the off season.  Interestingly, they were not on the Bombers when the 1965 season started. 

 

Unfortunately for the Shamrocks, their season ended early, likely due to financial problems.  They weren’t drawing as well as the Bombers either.

 

 

 
Joan Weston, a great skater in her own right, became the Bombers’ women’s captain after Jensen left.  It was an adjustment but I saw on television how great Weston was.  Not seeing her on television very much, Weston was probably what the Bombers needed at the time.

 

My first game was in August 1965 and it was against the Midwest Pioneers.  You wouldn’t believe this but Annis Jensen and Joe Foster were picked up by the Pioneers after the Shamrocks folded.  It was kind of a situation where you wanted to see the Bombers win but you wanted to see Jensen and Foster do well.

  

The Bombers won that night on a warm evening outdoors at Castro Valley High School.

 

A few of us went the following year when they returned to the high school.  That time, the Bombers went up against Roller Games’ Chicago Hawks.  I remembered a skater the Hawks had by the name of Sally Vega.  She had a great game from my recollection.  The Hawks won that night.

 

A couple of years later, I had a chance to see the Bombers indoors.  Will share more on that in a future post.