When We Was Rad:
Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

Birmingham: concrete city, bye bye


Concrete City. Close of article about skateboarding in Birmingham in 1991The picture at the bottom right has a poignant grimness to it. That really does sum up the idea of skaters making use of the spaces that everyone else would shun. It may look oppressive but we really had a great day there. So much stuff. I have a great fondness for that picture.
I wish we had done more in Birmingham.

I’ve also just discovered that the file still contains the notes which had been made to help us identify the skaters for captions. They were inadequate — it’s taken 16 years to put names to some of these faces.

We circled on, back up towards the Central Library for a final step session, and then everyone split up into smaller groups and headed back to different parts of the city. We’d only scratched the surface of Birmingham. We’d only been to a few of the spots in the central area and there are plenty of other little spots dotted around the middle of town. It’s an ideal skate city — good spots in a compact area, with a good sprinkling of banks, handrails and the like in the surrounding suburbs.
Like most large cities, Birmingham has so much skate stuff that it can support a whole crowd of rad street skaters who you never really get to see outside of their own area. There were so many there on that day that we could never remember who they all are, but here are some names. Our thanks to Benny, Wickhamb, Christian, Stephen Powers, Rich, Philip Hanks, Michael Fallon, Simon Carter, Sprog, Tim Jones and everyone else for showing us a rad insight into a rad city.

NAMES:
Benny: Grey New Deal top, grey shorts, UCLA hat
Wickhamb: Poor House long sleeve, grey trousers, Converse boots black Stussy hat
Wizzer: Yellow top, grey trousers
Christian: Black Vision top grey thtrash hat beige trousers, green board
Black New Deal hat blu blind top, Vison shoes, Stephen Powers
Richard: Brown Vision street wear top, grey trousers, green hat
Brown top grey trousers, Rich
Visin boots, hooded top, green new deal hat, Philip Hanks
Grey//wht G&S top, grey hat, black trous, Convers: Michael Fallon
Tim Jones: purpl stsu hat, black thunder ls t, glasses.
Strtw cap, deathbo hooded sweat red; Sprog

,

2 responses to “Birmingham: concrete city, bye bye”

  1. i always had a fascination with that bank photo…that bank is amazing. long gone i imagine as i never saw it when i lived up there and not seen it any recent photos or video. ah well.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *