Simon Evans wrote this report on a competition in Goshen, and pointed out one of the favourite themes of Rad Mag: “the words are just a trick to make you look at the pictures” (to paraphrase David Byrne or Brian Eno).
Hello, and welcome to another comp report. I guess you’ve probably already had a look at the photos dotted around the page and now, in a fit of depression and despair, have decided to sit down and look at the boring part: the words. So let’s talk about the pictures instead.
You may have already noticed that although the comp took place at the Goshen Leisure Centre in Bury, there aren’t any photos of skating on the mini. Yep, something happened that hasn’t happened on British soil for a while: there was a vert contest.
The stage was set: Bury, indoors — on a very wet (hailstones) Sunday in March. There were two sections: the under 16s and over 16s. The surprise of the event was the under 16 class. Take a look at that picture of Sean Ward doing a rad fakie stand-up grind to fakie. Sean has to be one of the most dramatically improved skaters around, plucking amazing tricks from the air for his competition runs — trickery like fakie to nose-grind tail grabs, manual rolls, frontside one-foot tail grabs and lip slides. He skated really solid and certainly deserved to win.
What about that picture of Carl Shipman preparing to go to tail with this backside melanchollie to tail? Carl got second in the under 16. He skated really well, making fakie one foot tail-grab and alley-oop backside Smith, doing everything smooth and clean. In third place was Chris Hudson. He could have placed higher, but fell off a few times. From his bag of tricks came chink-chinks, melanchollies, Ollie blunts, ollie nose-stall tail grab and he came real close to 360° varials.
The over 16 section saw some real good skating, as you can probably tell from these photos. Some people didn’t do as well in the results as they did on the ramp, mentioning no names (Davy Philip). In the fine tradition of comp results, I’ll work through them in reverse order. Stuart Hoyle surprised everyone with his relaxed and fast antics, pulling newest deals, smith grinds, nose grinds and G-turn lipslides.
Check out that rad picture of Andy Williams doing the frontside nose bone. Andy had some real rad stuff, but couldn’t get it together at the end. But he still did some rad stunts like half-Cab Ollie blunts, nose grinds, feeble grinds, Madonnas and fakie 360° Ollies.
Justin Ashby does good relaxed frontside rocks. He skated fast, shooting around the masonite jungle. Oh yeah: everyone liked his shoes.
6 responses to “Goshen Gallery — skateboard ramp competition 1991”
Wow, Goshen. That place was rad, I used to go down to Manchester a fair bit around then, I think I was at that comp but I’m not sure. I remember a mini ramp comp there, possibly before the vert went in when the mini was 8 foot wider. The mini was insane back then as it was about 32 or 36 foot wide which was unheard of. I remember people like Justin Rawcliffe totally ripping that place up!
Are there more pictures from that comp? It’d be good to see them.
Rick: yes, there’s a bit more Goshen stuff coming up in this article. No doubt it will also appear again as (if!) I work through other issues. Thanks for reminding me about the original, wider, version of the mini-ramp. That brings back memories. I remember that now: it was really special wasn’t it? Nobody had built anything as wide as that at the time. And indoors, too.
It must be very hard for skaters who were not around during the dark ages to remember a time when there were so few places to skate and a ramp like that was a unique phenomenon. A time when people would travel all the way to Bury from London or Dundee to skate it, almost as a matter of course. It’s what we had to do then. It’s easy to forget. Those were different times.
Yep, they were interesting times staying in Bury at Gooey’s house! Still speak to Gooey at times actually, living in New Zealand now.
RIP goshen. was a mecca back in the 90’s
Ahhhhh Goshen Leisure Centre…..
We used to go there weekly ( a 40 mile trek for us )
I remember being at this comp and it was so busy…..Id never seen it like that there! It was great, I can remember standing on a chair just to be able to see.
Usually there was no more than 6 or 7 of us at any one time.
For the time that mini ramp was amazing!
Miss those times.
i use to go all time and bury sports center those where the days loved it did any of the powell crew come there sure they did