#JHGSKATE

A SOUTHAMPTON SKATEBOARDING STORY

By Don Brider & Friends

Skateboarding’s humble beginnings, from surfers on America’s west coast to Olympic Games, have been well documented over the years. It’s routes in the surf and punk scenes of the 1950’s and 1960’s have echoed through time to distill a DIY ethos in most, if not all, Skateboarders. The vibe has always been: ‘If no one’s gonna do it for you, do it yourself!’ 

It took some time before Skateboarding reached UK shores and it wasn’t until the mid to late 1970’s that things really took off. Again, with humble beginnings and a handful of dedicated people, the Skateboard ‘craze’ of the late 1970’s and early 80’s took the country by storm with Skateparks, competitions and clubs being created on the local and national level.

But Skateboarding hasn’t always enjoyed success. It sits in a strange space between sport and lifestyle and those on the outside have never known whether to put it in the same camp as Yo-Yo’s, Hoola-Hoops and Fidget Spinners or a competitive sport like Football or Hockey. This has also meant the peaks and troughs of Skateboarding’s popularity have been, for want of a better word, ‘extreme’! Skateboarding had ‘died’ and been resurrected many times in its history, but there have always been those humble few, building and creating things when no one else would do it for them, to keep it alive.

In the shadow of Skateboarding making its debut at the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympics, we celebrate the history of this art form in and around Southampton, with hand-picked artefacts and stories sharing a snap-shot of how things started and where they are going.