Actually, truth be known the first time I visited Skatopia in Manukau, NZ I don’t have any recollection of. Maybe it’s the early onset of head trauma induced dementia - wear a helmet kids! Or maybe it’s the fact that I hadn’t really caught the skateboarding bug yet so was there with my older brothers that were skaters and just tagged along. I was 11 years old.
My older brother pointed out to me that I’m the kid in the striped woolen jersey standing next to the Prime Minister at that time, Robert Muldoon, in the footage of the official opening of Skatopia in Andrew Moore’s incredible documentary No More Heroes.
If you haven’t seen No More Heroes yet please check it out,actually if you have the time or inclination,while you’re at it ,take a deep dive into Andy’s portfolio of work,Yeah Bo !
The second visit however, I remember clearly.
Skatopia used to have night sessions. The park had lights, but nothing like the lights in modern skateparks where you can actually see. It was early 1979.
My brother had his own board, but maybe had to hire pads and a helmet. You had to have those to skate you see, you then paid your entry fee and it was all go from there.
I was there once again as a spectator, my brother was probably told to let his little brother tag along, poor bugger .
As I entered the park, I remember a few things in particular. Loud music, the sound of pinball machines, the smell of takeaways being cooked and getting the stink eye because I was nowhere as cool as everyone else there that night.
My brother gave me 20 cents and said let me know if anyone hassles you and I’ll sort them out. Don’t try and skate though, you’ll probably eat shit and dad will kill me if I take you home injured. Thanks bro!
He then proceeded to roll by the tuck shop, rolled into the clover bowl and blazed through a couple of laps of the bowl at speed.
Holy Shit I thought to myself, that looks insane!
Like some sort of magic carpet ride, far out!
Big brother then took off down the snake run, wow …too cool.
As you did as an inquisitive young lad I thought I’d take a look around.
I walked over to the ditch aka the slalom run and saw a bunch of older dudes ripping. I must not have understood spectator etiquette because an intimidating guy in a home made Sex Pistols tshirt and a few missing teeth told me in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of the way.
I then walked over to the big bowl and half pipe - awe inspiring stuff it was.
The big bowl varied in height from about 10 to 13 feet. It was also known as the 15 foot bowl, so maybe it was that big? I suspect there’s a bit of a fisherman’s tale in that name just quietly, but hey, I never measured it.
These guys riding this are madmen I thought. How do you get the balls to ride something that big? To me it was like some sort of Gladiator Colosseum type shit. Fight, or in this case, skate to the death!
The music playing was loud and aggressive. It was probably 70s Punk, the Sex Pistols or the Ramones were on regular rotation, as were Devo, the B52s and the Cure.
I saw someone I recognised. He was one of the older guys from the neighbourhood. One of the characters that hung out and played pool in the garage at home with my older brothers. He was ripping. He was one of those guys that always had red eyes and smelled of that Dak stuff.
He said I should skate, semi calling me out I guess, I guess he meant I was taking up space, haha.
Well I thought, if the older neighbourhood dude says I should skate … I should skate.
Off to talk to big bro!
My brother said to me, look man… you don’t know what you’re doing. He was right there, but I guess that he saw the look of despair and disappointment on my face when he dropped some truth on me and said… I tell you what, I’m going to see if I’ve got enough money to hire you a helmet and pads. I presume the board was a hire board too, luckily he did. Either that or he pulled a South Auckland special and the board and pads miraculously materialised, that sort of thing occurred a lot back then.
I remember thinking the pads stunk and were a bit wet, the helmet was the same, the pads were made by Trax, so was the helmet.
I was taken to the freestyle area, which I guess was the beginner area, and was told to stay there. This was code for leave this area and shits not gonna end well for you or me.
I had rolled around on a board a little bit like most kids in the 70s. Both my brothers were skaters so of course if their Go Powers or Wyndham Wonders were around I’d endanger my life on one of them occasionally. We’re talking wobbling around on the driveway or road, a broken wrist a mere pebble away but had no idea of how to weight or unweight, go up or down a wall, you get the picture.
I spent an hour or so in the freestyle area, it was a lot of fun. I was enjoying this new skatepark thing. There was another kid my age skating there too. He could skate way better than me though, and he dressed way cooler too, damn it. I followed this guy to the ditch. I remember I had no concept of how to go up the walls and come down again. He was riding the ditch with confidence, bastard!
I’ll never forget seeing John Slater for the first time that night. A guy I looked up to a lot down the track, he influenced a lot of us younger guys at the park. He was a super cool dude. He knew what was cool to wear, what was cool to listen to, he was just cool.
Side note…we recently reconnected after decades, I'm talking 35 maybe even 40 years since we last spoke .
As I got out of the run after wobbling my way down I looked up and saw this guy riding a strange looking board. It was longer than most of the other boards there that night. This guy had a metal Clyde slide on, a pre cursor to the lapper that was popular in the 80s, so sparks were coming off his back truck when he did lip slides. So cool!!! Even cooler was his get up - a black suit jacket popular with late 70s punks at the time and ripped jeans like The Ramones wore. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, kind of a punk attitude I guess…his T-shirt had a name on it ,The Members. This was my first interaction with John.
I went back to the freestyle area and after riding around a bit I thought I’d try to go down the path to the little snake and try to go into the bowl for the first time.
Yep… you guessed it. Time to pay the piper. Welcome to skateboarding!
I came to with my brother and someone from the skatepark staff asking me if I knew my name and did I know where I was? I’d well and truly had my bell rung!
I do remember my brother telling me not to mention the fall to mum when we got home. He knew he’d be in trouble, even though it was me not listening to his advice to stay in the beginner area that created the problem, and I think he knew my chances of getting back there in the near future would be slim to none if this got back to the olds!
I followed his instructions as you did back then, and it never happened.
The following week at school all I could think about was the mind blowing experience I’d had at Skatopia. I couldn’t wait to get back.
Who cares about the concussion,the whiplash and the limited neck movement? Not that anyone had the repercussions of a head injury on their radar back then.
I felt I may have found something cool, something really exciting, even that I’d found my new tribe and temple.
I’m thankful to have ridden Skatopia right through until it closed in 82 .
We were still riding there when the machines were breaking parts of it up and burying it and we continued to ride parts of it that survived the blade for awhile too.
Desperados we were you see.
We knew that this special place was about to exit stage left.
Like they say ,not everything lasts forever, Skatopia only lasted for four years.
Lots of firsts in my life went down at Skatopia. I can’t really get into details however, to protect the innocent and the guilty .
I’m still close with some of the guys I met in those halcyon days at the park, most of them still skate. We often reminisce about how special Skatopia was to us. Reunions are a dangerous thing you see, and the stories seem to be more embellished as the years go .
I guess that’s why I felt it was important to bring out some Skatopia merch recently,I knew the place meant so much to people that it was important to keep the dream alive.
It’s something the crew talked about doing for years ,nice to tick that one off.
Thanks to everyone that purchased a Skatopia Shirt ,hoody or sticker ,much appreciated.
Thanks to everyone that reached out and sent me pics wearing their gear ,shared a memory or made contact .Heart warming stuff.
A friend of mine in the States was wearing his Skatopia NZ T Shirt out in the wild skating recently and ran into an important figure in NZ skateboarding history,Chris Strople.
Chris visited Skatopia in 78 ,he was one of the top American pros at the time and did a demo ,kind of a landmark moment in NZ Skate history.
Seeing this t shirt sparked a conversation around his visit to NZ over four decades ago.
I loved hearing that.
I’d like to dedicate this rambling to the late Grant Elmes .
