When i was a kid we would play football for 12 hours a day. There was nothing else to do and our only heroes were the dudes with the weird facial hair and fucked up haircuts like Slade who also played footie for local teams…maybe. I met George Best in a Manchester restaurant when i was 6 or 7 and he was at the height of his footballing career. My Auntie worked there and my dad had driven up to Manchester to visit family etc, we got a table, it was a very nice place to nosh very posh. Best came in as i was trying to suss out what this thing was i was supposed to eat, my fish had a slice of lemon on top and i was confused. George worked the crowd on his way through to a private table i daresay, working it like a pro really, just enough time to make an impression and then next handshake etc etc. People were in absolute fucking awe of this man….i forgot what the point of this shared memory was….
Over the skatepark the council spent 150,000 quid on an all weather floodlit football pitch and the skatepark was 30,000 worth of shitty quarter pipe, flat bank, rail box horribleness. Trouble is on the football pitch there was a Dad and two kids in Manchester united tops hoofing a ball around, the kids looked pissed off to be fair. Over the skatepark you could not fucking move for bikes, scooters, skateboards, inline roller thingys…all age groups, Dad dudes, thirty somethings, twenties, teens i would say 6 to well me 47 in age. Nobody ever plays football any more and nobody is much interested in it. Football has destroyed itself by pricing the kids out of the sport, theie new heroes of football are strange blinging semi morons with a shit taste in cars and women. They are false idols for Jordan Councilkid who spends half his time avoiding people who want to kick the shit out of him and his moms new boyfriend or whatever. Kids aren’t stupid, kids are clever they have to be in the world of kids and kid madness. Every dumb arse tracksuit clad kid that shuffles around shopping centers with his hood up is the kid who is scared of us, me and you. That dumb stare you get is a boy or a girl pretending adult madness doesn’t happen. They however are fine tuned to every change in mood we have, every nuance of our behaviour, vocalisations etc. So….they know football is a big fraud, the stars are liars and cheats, there is no glory for hard work only for those who have the money and the financial clout to cherry pick the best players and the best Managers…it’s all a massive con and the kids fucking know it. The death of football will be a fart of an incident.
So kids skate and fart around on scooters or whatever, it’s cool, you see….there are girls at the skatepark riding BMX’s and scooters and mountain bikes for fucks sake, they are having fun. Talking and showing off to girls is fun, having a laugh under the ramp is cool, the sun shines and the skatepark is full of love.
Our kids man…little bastards. We have to build bridges with them again and rebuild that trust we had between each other. We do that through our love of wheeled objects that we risk life and limb on….we have to keep them stoked on our pastime.
Kids have to skate at events for free man, under 16’s have to pay no money to skate at an event this has to be a fucking real thing happening in the future. Even if they just get two or three runs a day it will be worth the effort to turn up with Mom and Dad maybe and have a fucking good day out. Kids have to skate for free.
lovemachinegun 