Prepare yourselves for 11 minutes of Glasgow skate scene representation via the latest release from the GCS collective in the form of ‘Glasgow Hi8TUS’.
Glasgow has a long and illustrious skateboarding history: in the 70’s the original Kelvingrove skatepark nurtured the talents of 80’s Scottish legends such as Jamie Blair, Davie Phillips, Colin ‘Cubic’ McInnes and many more, before being filled in following the ‘death’ of skateboarding in the early 80’s.
(You can still actually see the remnants of the filled-in snake run in Kelvingrove park here. As an aside for the geeks among you, Glaswegian Blueprint pro Colin Kennedy once had a photo printed in Sidewalk 50-50’ing the guard rail of the original Kelvingrove snake run back in the late 90’s too).
Moving forwards from the original 1970’s era, Glasgow played host to the ‘Angel Lights Planetary’ indoor skatepark AKA ‘The Church; which saw everyone from Steve Claar to Tony Hawk visit Glasgow during the resurgent late 80’s skate boom, along with fostering the talents of a newer generation of street skaters including the likes of Chris ‘Noodles’ Lonergan, (who may also hold the accolade of having the first ever road gap ollie sequence published in a UK mag) and mini-rippers such as Colin Kennedy and Blair McCafferty to name but two.
You can check some old archive footage of The Church, Glasgow here…
As the 90’s arrived, street skating took over the skate scene in Glasgow with Clan Skates (owned by 70’s ripper Jamie Blair), and the sadly now defunct MBC Skate store leading the charge. Chris Mowatt, a young Colin Kennedy and newly arrived student residents such as John Rattray began to put Glasgow’s modern street scene on the map with the city regularly popping up in UK videos and in the skate media.
Fast forward to the early 00’s and Kelvingrove skatepark V2.0 was completed, dropping an early plaza-style skatepark directly into the historical heart of the Glasgow skateboard scene. Since then, the city has gone from strength to strength, with another skater-owned store opening in the recent past – Pyramid Skate Store, a Government-sanctioned street spot (complete with Colin Kennedy exhibit) at the Glasgow Transport Museum and a super active scene producing heaps of skate video content along the way – the city more than maintains its position as a hotbed of Scottish skateboard talent.
It’s into this skateboard context that this New Glasgow skate scene video – ‘Glasgow Hi8TUS’ has dropped.
Filmed and edited by Finn Rabbitt Dove, with additional filming by George Toland – this is straight up gold with footage from all over the city of Glasgow, along with clips from the Leith DIY project. Featuring the likes of: Alden CJ, Matthew Rimmer, Andy White, Ferddy Kruger, Rory Muirhead, Ronan O’Connor, Calum Oct, Dylan Esposito, Charles Myatt, Ross Zajac, Myles Shankie and Freddie Lusk (to name less than half of those involved) – if you want to know what the Glaswegian skate scene looks like – here’s your window.
