For skateboarders in the Northern Hemisphere, the start of the year can feel like the end of the world. An existential and meteorological downward spiral, deepened if you spent last summer somewhere markedly better. But then trips are excitedly planned across chaotically duplicate social media platforms through April and May; a glut of adventure from June to early September; then the stomach-tightening disappointment as nights lengthen and tarmac dampens.
The cyclical woe ramped right up in What if, in , we took something back from our travels, improving our hometown environments, the rest of our active lives and the lives of younger generations? This year, it would be nice to reduce the contrast between away and home. Fortunately, the relatively small Swedish city provides a lodestar for UK skate scenes demoralised by generational churn and municipal hostility.
The final of the Vans Pro Skatepark Series was not hosted in sun-kissed California, but in a frequently rainy upper corner of northern Europe. Copenhagen, over the bridge, attracts attention for similar reasons: huge, well-designed public skateparks , indoor parks and global events; flourishing DIY scenes; rippers attracting the biggest of sponsors; and energetic cadres of long-time skaters who have convinced their local authority of the wider benefits of all of this.
It also experienced the sharp-end of de-industrialisation and the fragility of neo-liberal redevelopment. A visitor from the North of England in the mids would have observed familiar symptoms of urban blight. And, would you believe it, skateboarding has played an important role. With nowhere in winter other than an indoor carpark, they formed a club. As membership grew, the City took notice and provided an abandoned school for a mini-ramp, and then the much larger former brewery site for an indoor park, and the non-profit Bryggeriet was born.
When Quicksilver withdrew from skateboarding, Bryggeriet together with the City took over. Is hard work and a can-do attitude more important than the serendipity of living in progressive Sweden? The City gave skaters a chance. Perhaps more crucial⦠is that the skaters here realised they had to be a good partner to the City. They realised they had to give the city value for their investment. Our experience in the UK is often characterised by Local Government hostility in Kettering, Norwich, Birmingham, Sheffield and other towns and cities where bans have existed for years or have recently been implemented.
