{"id":71092,"date":"2026-05-07T14:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/?p=71092"},"modified":"2026-05-07T14:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T14:06:57","slug":"couple-competed-in-rival-teams-at-mens-roller-derby-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/couple-competed-in-rival-teams-at-mens-roller-derby-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple competed in rival teams at Men&#8217;s Roller Derby World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A couple, who both compete in a Sheffield roller derby team, took part in the Men&#8217;s World Cup last weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthony Graham, who played for England and Zoe Graham, for Ireland, are both part of the Inhuman League in Sheffield, spent the week competing in France.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>England came third in the competition and despite Ireland not reaching past the group stages Zoe, from Westhouses in Derbyshire, said: \u201cIt was absolutely amazing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have never been to a World Cup before, not even as a spectator.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Day 1 - Track 1 (1\/2) | Men&#039;s Roller Derby World Cup 2026\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/X59NZn69VzU?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthony and Zoe both play in The Inhuman League competing in the British Championships and Anthony also coaches Zoe\u2019s women&#8217;s team, Sheffield Steel Roller Derby.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zoe said: \u201cIt is really nice to do something separately but it was scary because we\u2019ve always been in derby together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both said it was \u201cextremely difficult\u201d to get into the squads. There were 150 applicants for the England squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anthony believed that what got him a place in the charter was his leadership and communication skills as well as his understanding of the game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The pair set up a GoFundMe page to help with the costs of flights and accommodation and raised \u00a3800.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0The name of the World Cup is going to be changed going forward to be more reflective of the people that play, as people of all genders play in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zoe said: \u201cThis is a really positive step forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIts always been inclusive and changing the name will really drive that forward.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each country in the World Cup consists of 20 players but only 15 play in any one game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both Anthony and Zoe congratulated their team on being \u201cvery committed and focused\u201d throughout.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Ireland team were spread across Ireland and England which made training difficult but Zoe said they still gelled together.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She said: \u201cThey were incredible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEveryone had the same mindset and goals and most of us had never skated together before.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They both hope to make it into their squads for the next World Cup in two years&#8217; time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both have their eyes set on finishing their club level games, in the next couple of months.  Anthony said his focus is on the European Championships in November whereas Zoe\u2019s is the club play offs in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple, who both compete in a Sheffield roller derby team, took part in the Men&#8217;s World Cup last weekend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":861,"featured_media":71164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[378,1789,1791],"class_list":["post-71092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","tag-couple","tag-roller-derby","tag-world-cup"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Couple competed in rival teams at Men&#039;s Roller Derby World Cup - ShefNews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shefnews.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/couple-competed-in-rival-teams-at-mens-roller-derby-world-cup\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Couple competed in rival teams at Men&#039;s Roller Derby World Cup - 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