A while ago I was thinking about how long it be before someone held a vert skaters reunion, shortly after this thought I bumped into Trawler at the Meanwhile comp and he informed me that it was his plan to perform such an act to celebrate his birthday. This is not just another birthday, this is not an eighteenth, not a twenty first, not even a thirtieth, this is the mans fortieth birthday, and Trawler more than most had reason to celebrate in style since (like my brother) he had recently defeated the illness known as cancer. I don't know Trawler that well, in fact I've on;y met him a handfull of times, but you'd be hard pushed to find someone with so much enthusiasm for skateboarding (and life in general). His popularity was reflected in the amount of people that made the trip to Bristol (some from abroad), many people skated, many were happy to watch, but everyone had a good time. It was probably the biggest vert skate session this country has seen for many years.

I missed a lot of the older guys skating because I went to check out a new concrete skatepark with Zorlac, Cates and Dibble. I can't remeber what the park was called but it was a Bendcrete thing, it was sick but a bit slippy. When we got back there was about 3 generations of skaters on the ramp, old school ripper award would have to go to Mark Van Der Eng from Holland who was going high and fast. The new school was represented by Pete King, Matthius Nylen, Joe Habgood and Danny Wainwright (yeah you read it right). On the injured bench were Mike Edwards, Ozzie Steve, Sean Goff. Names from the past that I missed skate included Mark Abrook, Sue Hazel and Arwyn Davies (who was apparently ripping). Trick lists aren't really appropriate for something like this , but I have to mention the sick shit that got done on the 4ft temporary extension: Joe Habgood - backside disaster, Matthius - b/s ollie up to tailslide, Wingy - b/s boneless and invert.

seeing as everyone there was old and probably has a job, it was a Sunday night after all, the event finished kind of early, in fact we were back in London by 1am, which coincidentally was when Andy Scott, Justin Ashby and Pete Dossett decided to get to Bristol!

Happy Birthday Trawler

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