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Sunday Service: Andy Scott

Scotty's section in the 1991 Deathbox video 'Spirit of the Blitz'

Seeing as this year’s Vert Attack falls on this weekend, it seemed only fitting to dedicate this week’s Sunday Service to one of the best to ever grace the loneliest discipline; Andy Scott. Andy’s contribution to UK vert skateboarding and in fact vert skating in general cannot be underestimated. One of the original Deathbox wunderkinds, he transitioned with them to Flip Skateboards and briefly joined them in their trek across the Atlantic before deciding to stay in the UK, honing his Jedi powers in amidst the much missed confines of Bolton Bones. Kickflip 540s and the ‘Scrambled Egg’ (a kickflip eggplant) are two of the tricks to be attributed to Scotty first and chances are that more have been pioneered – accidentally and without his knowledge most likely.

Bones shut down but the nonchalant pisstakery emanating from his feet didn’t miss a beat, with tales of him showing up at comps late, taking one run and getting first place. He even managed to win best trick at the Air + Style 2017 contest in Innsbruck without being capture on film once, definitely a technique learned from Alec Guinness in a galaxy far, far away etc.

Epitomising the ‘less is more’ approach to skateboarding footage output, there are still a few visual representations of his nonchalant pisstakery on four wheels. A stint on the Death Skateboards team saw him drop an incredibly section on Better Than Life, before a move to the short lived Superdead Skateboards saw him cropping up on a number of tour edits before they disappeared. The course of the years have also seen him appear in a number of scene productions and cropping up in a number of comp edits – including that time last year where he accidentally filmed a section during the Mancunian leg of the UK Independent Vert Series.

For now though, we’ll offer up for your viewing enjoyment a young Andy Scott, sharing a section with a similarly pint sized Blair McAfferty, in Deathbox’s 1991 video Spirit of the Blitz – a video which no one can argue didn’t alter the landscape of the UK skate scene and indelibly turn things up a notch.

Spirit of the Blitz (1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be7StepriAA

A4 Distribution – Hating Life (1999)

Following on from this, we don’t have Andy’s section in the incredible ‘Hating Life’ as a standalone piece, but you can find it at 12:35 into the full length below – on the other hand, you could grab a brew or a beer and just watch the whole thing. We mostly recommend doing that…

Baghead Flats (2010)

For good measure, here’s Andy’s part in the classic 2010 scene video Baghead Flats, in which all manner of transition madness is handled with seemingly no more effort than it takes to ride off a curb…and there’s Div, Josh Parr and Tez cameos chucked in for good measure!