A hard-working dad of two and husband of one. Born and bred in Carluke and younger brother of Div. He enjoys square sausage rolls almost as much as he enjoys skatepark carparks.
Here we have Colin’s ten commandments of the carpark:
1 – A roll van that sells square sausages.
2 – Low key parties achievable.
3 – Loosely able to get a sesh without entering skatepark.
4 – Close to the spot.
5 – Could actually be a spot.
6 – Easy access.
7 – Easy exit wheel-spin out area for extra point.
8 – Room for donuts.
9 – Close enough to a BK, KFC or McDs.
10 – Nae polis.
So that’s just a little insight into how Colin goes about his business. I could go on for days about how he skates like a man possessed, but who wants to hear that?
The Burntisland vert wall has seen some action in its time, Colin adds a heroic tailblock. Photo Leo Sharp
What are you up to?
I’ve literally just finished carving a pumpkin. Emy (Colin’s daughter) wanted a pumpkin with a cat on it, so I’ve just got that done.
Oh, sick. So what’s up with Carve Wicked then? That’s Sam Pulley’s thing through Shiner, right?
Aye,just Sam Pulley and the boys having a laugh. That’s it basically. We all know each other from going to various comps and stuff like that, just being up and down the place skating.
This is your second pro board for them, right?
Aye, second board. I’ve literally just seen the graphic today. It’s brilliant. They’re always on point with the graphics. And the shape’s fucking great as well. Go buy it!
Is that how it goes? You don’t know the graphic until you see the board?
That’s it, aye. I trust them not to do anything daft, you know what I mean? We’ve all got the same kind of mind-set and humour anyway. I can always trust them to give us a laugh.
I remember when you were given your first free board – by somebody from Jart – at a Livi Fun Day. What’s happened in between getting that and your second pro board coming out?
Ha! It’s been a bit mental. I dunno man. You’re just well stoked if you get given a board. At comps back in the day folk would give me boards and stuff, and you were always well stoked to get a new board, and you’d skate it to death. But once a company says they’ll give you boards, it really blows you away. I never really did too much with Jart, but then Heathen came about and I skated for them for years. They’re a good bunch of lads. Then I got asked to skate Creature boards, and I was well into it. Stu Graham was away a lot, but it’s always good when you get to skate with him. Then it happened again and I was asked if I wanted a Carve Wicked board, and I was well into it because it was all my mates. People I want to go skate with anyway, so we all go and skate and film and stuff.
Have this banger of a Andrecht all the way from Renfrew. Pure Stylin’. Photo Leo Sharp
Your board is 9″ wide, but would you skate something bigger if they made it?
I’ve never really had a chance to skate anything bigger that’s got a shape that I’d like to skate, to be honest. I skated 8.5” for a while, from going all the way up from 7.75”. Then 8.8” for a while. Then Stu had a 9″ board and he let me have a shot of it, and it was just like, “Aye! Gimme one of them!” I was well into the shape and the size. But if Sam wants to make a bigger one, that’d be cool!
Did you and your brother (Div) start skating at the same time? I don’t remember ever really seeing you two separately.
I was really into computers when I was wee, so I’d be on the computer while Div was outside making a BMX out of three broken BMXs or something. Shit like that. Then one year we got skateboards for Christmas, but we’d go to the skatepark and just take everything – a BMX, another bike, boards, whatever. Stupid shit. We didn’t really stick to one thing for a while, until we just wanted to skate and that was it. We’ve probably been skating about the same amount of time. We were always doing stuff together when we were wee, you know? Playing down the burn, fucking about and trying to cut trees down and all that shit. Up the bing on our BMXs, shit like that.
Colin boots a Judo on the gone and sorely missed ‘The Space’ Skatepark vert u-pipe in North Berwick. Photo Leo Sharp
Did you ever rollerblade? You wouldn’t be the only Livi local with a rollerblading past if you did…
Haha, aye, and I’m a bit ashamed, obviously. I think everybody’s done a bit of rolling about on those at some point. I just never got into it.
You’re pro, you own a house, you’ve got a family and you’ve got a pretty serious day job on top of all that, haven’t you?
I work at a place in Lanark called Martin Aerospace, doing CMC machining, and a bit of programming. Stuff like that.
I don’t think many folk will know that.
Aye! I’m an engineer. Haha!
Another fallen beast (East Kilbride) has its nose picked by a visiting Adam. Photo Leo Sharp
How did you find time to learn all about that as well as travel and skate?
I don’t really travel too much, to be honest. And I don’t really skate too much, haha! Whenever I can get a chance, I’ll go, but it is hard trying to juggle a job, family, skating, mates and everything else in between. It’s hard to find time.
It took long enough to get this organised.
I know; I’d been putting this off for ages. It was in the back of my brain for a while but I never had time to just sit down and fucking bash this out.
The lesser seen bonelessing street Colin captured here in its natural habitat of Motherwell. Photo Leo Sharp
It’s part of your other job now, now that your name’s on a skateboard.
That’s it! Gotta get that other wage.
It would always be you, your brother and your dad at parks and comps for years. Does Jeff still come and see you skate even if he doesn’t have to drive you around now? Or is he just up mountains all the time?
Haha! Sometimes he’ll take us to the park, aye. If we get dropped off he’ll come and hang out for a bit. I’ve been mountain biking with him, and I think Div’s been a few times as well. (Mark) Burrows and Russ (Hall) have been doing a wee bit of mountain biking as well. It seems really cool. But aye, when he used to work in Livi he’d drive through and drop us off in the morning during the summer holidays, and pick us up again at the end of the day. He’s still up for driving around. But other than that you’ll see him in the gym or up a mountain, aye!
CA fires a colour co-ordinated backside air out of the crazy EK capsule. Photo Leo Sharp
What’s the raddest thing you’ve seen go down at Livi?
I saw Raven Tershy skate it not long ago; that was pretty wild. Just skating it like a local; straight in, straight into a line. That was something special. I’ve seen some pretty fucking stupid shit go down there as well. Livi was always gnarly, some days when I was young and my dad would drop us off you’d just see somebody running down from the (shopping) centre and they’d have a microwave or a TV and they’d just be running like fuck. Straight through, down the stairs. Then the polis would come, asking where they went and we’d just say we didn’t know.
Do you know why the E.K. indoor concrete park shut down? Is the bowl still in there?
Nah, that’s totally gone mate. That’s a Laser Tag now. As to why it shut, I don’t know. I mean, it had pretty much everything. Some of it was maybe too big for people to skate, I suppose. When the jump box went in a lot of people didn’t seem to want to go. I can’t really think and I do wonder myself sometimes why it did shut. It’s never really to do with the park, as such, is it? It’s more about what you make of it. I mean I can go to the E.K. wooden park and have a good session, or I can go to Livi and have a good session, or I can go to K.G. and have a good session.
(above – Colin visits Sean Penn by the sea. Photo Leo Sharp)
Have you ever fancied living in the States?
I’ve been a couple of times… It’s pretty good, but I don’t know if I could do it. I don’t think I could be over there, to be honest. Aye, it’s totally different all together. My feet are pretty firmly on the ground here.
What have you got planned from now on? What’s happening after these photos come out?
I honestly don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m going to be up to. Just see where life takes me. Just try to keep skating, and try to skate more. Try to get a couple more clips filmed… That’s about it!
The gigantic Dundee tit receives hot stalefish action from our intrepid hero to end this. Photo Leo Sharp
Who do you get stuff from? Shout some people out.
I want to shout out Nike SB. Vaughan and Colin from Nike. Obviously Carve Wicked, Shiner, Indy… Um… Fuck…
Wheels?
Car 13, man! Big up the Car 13. Big time! Oh aye, and Bawbags.
Anything you want to add before you get back to all that other stuff you’ve got going on?
I can’t think of anything else to add, man. I knew this was needing done for a while, and I was never able to actually just be, “Aye alright, let’s do it!”Cheers. I’ll get back to the pumpkin carving now.
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