NOT JUST
COBBLESTONES
AND CRUMPETS
BRITAIN BITES BACK
by Bear Hackenbush
W
ACKO! TACKO! Skate-ee-boarding U.K. style BACKO!! OH YES,
after countless years of underground cult status it's now being
dragged kicking and screaming into the harsh glare of Britain's
fashion-addicted youngsters...Yeah, skating, those weirdos what
ride about on floating pieces of wood...suddenly it's hip for
young punks to glitch and grind the dark alleys and damp dit-
ches, where before only winos would tread... Models pout at us.
from glossy sheets of "COSMOPOLITAN" as they wobble on top
of cheap Taiwanese decks and try to appeal to the KIDS...Oh dear, they're not even
halfway there...The kids are tuning into the concrete wave experience and that's big
fashion and big bucks. The hardened skaters here better wise up to the fact or we shall
be ripped apart by the money rats just like the first time in the summer of 77...Well,
you might say, have you got any cool ramps? Just what turns you guys on in the land
of afternoon tea? Of course, we've got the ramp thing here, but we're talking twenty or
thirty on the whole of this island, and, brothers and sisters, that's not a lot to go around.
People make something good happen here. The English Skateboard Association, those
hard-drinking, hard-loving organizers, have set up a series of Pro/Am contests for 87.
Vert thrills shall be had by the skating youth this year, but we seem destined to be most
at home in our inner city streets...WHY? you probe, TELL US WHY!!? Well...authorities,
parents, squares and busy-bodies always seem to want to rip down anything we create;
they tell us it's dangerous, it's noisy, they make insurance impossible to get, they want
it sterilized and sanitized before it will be considered...