First brought to the attention of the national skateboarding consciousness in 1997, the ‘Man Bank’, (or the ‘banked wall by the cherry trees in the Orange Zone University carpark off Lodge Street’ to those unaware of this decrepit stone monolith’s alternative life as a skate spot) is sadly no more.
RIP Leeds University's 'Man Bank' a Skateboarding video by videos
The background to the spot’s name comes from Paul ‘Man’ Silvester’s onslaught on the previously untouched skateable architecture of Leeds, (and notably the architecture in and around Leeds University) from the late 90’s and onwards.
Paul, or ‘Man’ as he is known, was the first person to unlock the potential of skating this thing in other ways than as a flat bank, by ollieing off the back wall into it in 1997, and then one-upping himself for the last trick of his first proper skate section in Unabomber Skateboard’s 1998 release ‘Unapromo’.
Nobody really fucked with this spot by going from the top wall into the bank like Man had for the next decade of so, until a younger generation of locals and the odd visitor with a fondness from bone-jarring gallantry picked up Paul Silvester’s late 90’s gauntlet and ran with it.
