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VOTE TRIPLE SWORD! |
It's road trip time again! And with the August bank holiday on it's way it can only mean one thing....
LORDS OF THE SWORDS 2015!
My first stop was Empire Skatepark in Colchester to meet Jack Kenward, Pete Berwick, Toby Gozzett and the ever late Jordan Thackeray. We gave up waiting and ended up as usual, picking the floppy twat up from his house. Next stop Wharf Road, Chelmsford.
This was a lower key event than past years have become, but the crowd that gathered in the disused gas works was still 20 teams thick with one team unable to make the start, but had the challenges emailed to them and the now traditional Altar/Zombie Brand crew almost outnumbering all the other teams put together! There were even teams taking part in Perth in Western Australia and New Zealand. Low risk, long distance shit talking between these teams was inevitable and I understand thoughly undertaken by both nations!
Once the final teams arrived Luke handed out the LOTS 2105 wax, stickers and challenge books and away we went to the first park.
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| Border Patrol dance party |
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| Harry didn't see the funny side of his brand new board to start with |
STANSTED
Stansted's just got a new concrete park. We arrived in bright sunshine and high spirits and got stuck in. The stains from an oil spillage by some vandals the night before the park's official opening day had no effect on the riding surface thankfully.
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s blunt |
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| Jordan Thackeray - over a train! |
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| Jordan Thackeray - over a bloody train! |
SAFFY
Saffron Walden has recently had the pool coping on the top bowl replaced and I have to say, I like it. I've always loved the rough sound of trucks scraping around this bowl and I haven't visited for a while. I had a good skate and got a few shots of some of the team.
As the session progressed, I could see Harry was busy getting the evening's session sorted...
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| Dave Meacock - b/s pivot nose grab thing (#1) |
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| Dave Meacock - b/s pivot nose grab thing (#2) |
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| Jack Kenward - b/s feeble |
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| Jack Kenward - b/s smith (#1) |
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| Jack Kenward - b/s smith (#2) |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s 50-50 |
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| Luke - f/s 5-0 |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s smith (#1) |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s smith (#2) |
The challenge: film a trick with the rest of the team doing a Mexican wave in the background.
I think the photo pictures the scene pretty well!
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| Jordan Thackeray - Mexican f/s smith |
KOBWEBS
As far as I know this small, private bowl in a shed somewhere near Billericay wasn't in the challenge book and thus does not gain us any extra points. Or any other sort of points for that matter. We were lucky enough to be invited to Kobwebs as we sat around at Saffron Walden's park as the sun ducked behind the houses. I was so pleased to finally be able to skate the place. A group of us that used to skate Zombieland met the builders and received a casual invite, but we sadly never took up the offer.
We pulled down the side of an unassuming terrace house after a rapid drive across Essex using mainly country lanes to find some outbuildings and right at the back behind numerous vans and tractors we saw light flooding from an open door.
We skated the bowl in this dusty shed late into the night, got some great footage and I took a slam that looked a lot worse than it was. Unfortunately Harry didn't catch my best moment on tape. The owners seemed stoked to see the session go off with Mikey, Toby, Jack and Jordan taring it a new one and we left happy and tired.
The journey home was an eventful one. As we headed down a straight, cars were overtaken as we passed a parked police car. As the drivers of our two cars panicked and floored it the police car pulled out for a look.
We both pulled into a left turning. Jack turned immediately left again into a small housing estate and as we later found out, parked in the drive of a house and ducked. We, in the other car fled down the road and turned the corner before the police car had taken the first left. Quickly speeding off, we eventually made it to the A12 and met back at Lewis' house an hour later to discover that neither car had been stopped on the way back!
Lewis then cooked the crew the best fried chicken I've tasted and we settled in for the night.
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| Jack Kenward - f/s nose pick |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s ollie |
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| Toby Gozzett - f/s nose grind |
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| Jordan Thackeray - ollie up to f/s smith |
DELSIDE
Delside is in the book. It was our second stop on Saturday. Our first was 'arrold 'ill. We stayed until the usual abuse and rock throwing started which didm't take long and we knew the rain was on it's way. We left for Delside and the session was on as soon as we exited the cars in a supermarket car park somewhere in Rayleigh!
Paul Carroll, along with some volunteer helpers have added some sections since my last visit which is great to see. These fresh elements are yet to be linked and were not ready to be skated with the older sections but you can see Paul's vision of the future and further work is going to bring this together so nicely!
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| Jordan Thackeray - b/s feeble fakie |
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| Jordan Thackeray - b/s tail slide transfer |
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| Jordan Thackeray - b/s smith |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s half cab (#1) |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s half cab (#2) |
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| Jordan Thackeray - f/s feeble |
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| Mark Radden - alley-oop fakie b/s smith (#1) |
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| Mark Radden - alley-oop fakie b/s smith (#2) |
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| Mark Radden - b/s crail slide |
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| Mark Radden - b/s lip slide |
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| Mark Radden - f/s 5-0 |
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| Mark Radden - f/s tail slide |
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| Mark Radden - f/s nose grind on the curved inset |
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| Mikey Joyce - b/s lip slide |
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| Mikey Joyce - f/s 5-0 revert |
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| Mikey Joyce - f/s no comply crail slide |
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| Mikey Joyce - f/s lein |
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Mikey Joyce - ollie one foot / ollie north
(take your pick, I'm sick of arguing about it.) |
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| Mikey Joyce - switch b/s 50-50 |
One challenge that wasn't in the book was for one team member to wet themselves in the background of a filmed clip. The team convinced Dave to do so all the same. He took it on with gusto and duly pissed his pants for no points!
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| Dave wants to meet you in the woods |
That thick, misty rain fell as we emerged from the woodland in which Delside resides. But instead of heading straight to the cars the crew went and looked at a big supermarket's rooftop car park exit ramp with a fat guard rail at the top.
Jack, Mark and Toby got tricks on the rail and exited with a couple of flips, at speed down the sporadically busy and now very wet ramp into the road below.
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| Jack Kenward - f/s 50-50 |
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| Mark Radden - f/s tail slide |
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| Toby Gozzett - f/s smith |
EMPIRE
Seeing that the rain was settling in over Essex for the day, we decided to use our get out of jail free card - the unique option of skating the skate park owned by two of our team!
We arrived late afternoon and skated through, past close and into the night. The drinks flowed and the party eventually took over once a few bangers were executed on the danger planks. Mikey's f/s kick flip stalefish transfer from the doorway to the flat bank was massive. And Jordan opened his deep local bag of tomfoolery all over the shop including a double lip slide over and under the doorway with Toby Gozzett!
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| Toby Gozzett & Jordan Thackeray - synchronised lips |
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| Mikey Joyce - MASSIVE f/s flip stalefish transfer |
After a long night of clambering up and down ramps with flash guns and tripods it was time for me to depart from this loved up bunch of party animals.
Lords Of The Swords once again proved that skateboarding, partying and a bunch of dicks goading you on creates a totally absorbing and unique experience. With such a tight crew from Triple Sword and Empire Skatepark my experience was one of radicalness from a bunch of gnarly skaters, likeminded friends with a natural drive to encourage each other, unashamedly into having a damned good time on kids toys!
Awards night is on Saturday 3rd October at Empire Skatepark in Colchester. All team videos will be screened and results of the online voting will be announced.
Who's going to get the trophy?!
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