God i remember us all taking about it at the skate shop back then. Absolutely fucked up and horrific.
We knew southbank was sketchy at that period in time but that was something else.
It was a time around the country when skaters were an easy target for groups of chavs , age didn’t even matter. I have a couple of mates hospitalised in Maidstone and Chatham , hit with their own boards . Fucking scum cunts.
I’m not sure what the state of play with this stuff is like now, but it seems those times are behind us to a good degree.
I was skating SB quite a lot during that time, and the whole strip from Westminster to Blackfriars was pretty quiet, bar joggers.
Southbank itself seemed quieter too - the packed sessions I saw in the early 90s didn’t seem to be a thing, so recognising locals was easier. and yes, skaters were often easy targets for abuse - too preoccupied with actually skating.
Wasn’t an SB local or anything then, but it felt like the early 00’s were generally fairly sketch to be a skater. Seemed like chavs used to love targeting skateboarders for whatever reason. I remember several occasions at our local (as a young teenager then) being chased by full-grown men with pit-bulls, baseball bats, wrenches, machetes, etc.
In magazines too it used be fairly common to read about it - in Sidewalk and the like it felt like a constant where people were always writing in about dealing with chavs/neds, etc.
Yeah the early 00s was sketch in parts, On the Meanwhile>PSSP>Southbank run we always encountered some sort of twunts who wanted to rob us or fight us for no other reason than we were skating. Always felt more dangerous than a few kids shouting moshers at you too
Tripps me out the same said twunts will most likely be in vans and thrasher t shirts right now
Familiar story about people trying to give me a kicking because I was a skater - late ‘90’s though. Early 00’s I tended to hit Stockport/Boneyard rather than skate proper street as most of my mates had moved away or quit.
One time two scallies were holding my head down trying to knee me in the face whilst I held my board in front of my face for protection. “Put the fucking skateboard down!” Yeah, no thanks. IIRC my mate lost his set up that night. Wankers. I hope their lives have been shit.
went skating with my brother yesterday for the first time in about 6 weeks, he came off while bombing a hill and snapped his collar bone. easy done but still sucks
When I snapped my clavicle my polish Uber driver told me to eat crushed egg shell and it’ll heal super quick.
I didn’t get round to it but always wondered if it would work.
Friend of mine snapped his collarbone a few years back, ended up having to have it pinned back together. It was well borked though, I think it’s quite unusual to need that.
reckon getting legged for skating street was a thing until about 2006ish then chavs just seemed to gradually disappear… i’ve thought about this before and still never came to a conclusion as to why
When I was about 17 in 1992-93 I went to visit some mates at Uni in SOAS and we took mushrooms and went skating in search of Meanwhile 2 at 2am. For some reason we had this idea that London was totally safe compared to our home towns and to be fair in that area it kind of was, but when the police found us all off our faces and squealing in high pitched excitement as we tried to ride our skateboards they just forced us all to go home.
Next day we went to Meanwhile 2 hungover and dead sober and my board went flying off into the piss trench and some kid grabbed it. I pulled it back off him and loads of other kids appeared and we got surrounded by a gang. Didn’t even stop to ask questions we just legged it and didn’t go back.
That night we went to Whirligig and lay under a parachute while they bounced balloons on it and I told everyone I was 15 and had run away from home and we got some free pills.
The 90s were cool but as with all things its swings and roundabouts.
I reckon it could be linked to the rise of sportswear multinationals in skateboarding. Bigger marketing budgets making skateboarding more accessible meaning a greater crossover between the two groups. You don’t see so many trackies tucked into socks but it still exists
