When We Was Rad:
Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

Category: Issue 82 December 1989

  • Danish Street Skaters in Madrid Comp

    These were the early days of street competitions and the course left much to be desired… Strange But True Fact 1 The competition was held in the skatepark of Madrid, but no part of the park was used: the concrete was shined and ramps built instead. Yes, the big pool was a bit too big…

  • Florian Bohm and Anders Puplanek, Madrid

    “Not another boring European Competion report” says the fictional reader in the opening of this article on the Madrid skateboard content. We suspected that we were keener on the rest of Europe than most of our readers, and sometimes it showed. EL TORRO GRANDE by Jamon Bocadillos “Oh, no”snarled the reader as he/she flicked over…

  • Bod and Guerrero in Madrid Skate Competition 1989

    Jamon Bocadillos = Mad Mike John, who is still working as a skate photographer to this day. Guerrero = fast, second. Bod = humongous Indy, second.

  • Lance Mountain Powell Advert 1989

    What better advert could you run at the end of the Irish story? Lance Mountain, looking like one of the nicest people in skateboarding. A moment of calm…

  • The Derry Hump

    The Ireland article draws to a close with a Bloblands-type hump in Derry and a Wendy House in a ramp. With its maniac skaters, novel spots and macabre sights, Dublin, and the Isle as a whole, gave the impression that anyone failing to have a good time here would probably be the sort who wouldn’t…

  • Grind the paint off your kerbs

    Gavin’s fond conclusion to the Northern Ireland section of this story also includes the advice that golf is “the nearest thing to skateboarding, and don’t let them tell you otherwise”. ‘Troubles’ was the after-dark topic. John Coffey’s troubles were ones of the soul: he’d thrown out all his copies of Thrasher with his scrap- books,…

  • Wurzel in Antrim 1989

    Rare that we were able to devote so much space to one story, but the extra advertising in this Christmas issue allowed up to spread out a bit, and this feature certainly deserved the space. Captions: Will you Follow? Wurzel’s second visit to Ireland. Antrim. One of the skaters featured here had appeared on the…

  • On manoeuvres: skaters and the army, Ireland 1989

    The picture at the bottom right shows an army patrol in the background of an otherwise typical scene: skaters using any shelter they can find to session in the rain. Then within five minutes the heavens opened and down poured a man’s rain. We retreated beneath a small bandstand since the situation was hopeless and…

  • The sound of a bandwaggon rolling towards us

    Think Extreme Games, Brummie Style. Or even Urban Games. These people had the right (or wrong) idea, but a few years too soon. I can remember shaking my head privately over a similar event in the London Docklands and thinking “it will never work”. Just shows how little I knew then! I always seem to…

  • Never play near parked cars

    The “never play near parked cars” caption was a reference to a world in which they sometimes exploded. Captions: Never play near parked cars, and certainly don’t do Ollie Blunts like Geegee outside Clive’s Gene Ollies at Clive’s ramp.