There’s not many hobbies/sports that could use an old dilapidated mill in Barrow In Furness or a Leisure Centre in Goshen/Bury near Manchester to create two legendary locations in the late 80’s early 90’s.
Barrow in furness. Loved the small intimate park but still had something for everyone, no rat run crossovers. Cool crew as well.
Dave Frame
The Shack skatepark originally came about after the success in the late 80’s of a local skate shop named ‘The Skate Shack’. Salthouse Mills was chosen as in the words of third generation owner David Hodge “it was cheap as chips.”
Barrow in Furness. Monkey (Roger Clark) doing bus drivers over the hip. That’s the first thing that comes into my head.
Ian Morris
The building reflected the rawness of the sports frequenting it and during 1990 and 91 held two legendary contests that signalled a turning point away from organisation led contests into rider ran ones. The setup was unique and forward thinking as well as housing one of the best wallrides around. The shack survived 3 different owners and finally shut its doors in 2006. The fond memories below of those in attendance are a funny and true testament to that.
Goshen was a different fish but no less impressive, skateparks in leisure centres or council ran spaces are commonplace nowadays but in the early 90’s to get a ramp in one for more than a weekend was unheard of. According to Paul ‘Harry’ Harrison before Goshen came about another leisure centre just down the road that Harry & Chris (Hamer) and friends had blagged their way into had a ramp but the staff got fed up of carting kids off to hospital as before this the worst they had to deal with was a Badminton player getting a blister.
Goshen as that's where our nearest ramps were, and had a lot of good laughs with Jon T, Cong and the Sheep/Manchester crew... plus the ramps were great. The first time I went to Barrow was for one of their infamous jams. The park was fun and had more choice than Goshen. The spine mini was solid and original plus the hip mini was pretty good. But Goshen out of the two as holds more fond memories and pretty much learned how to ride a mini there.
Ross Milne
A councillor had either seen/heard or been to Split Skates (legendary Manchester skate shop) and with help from those previously mentioned and ramp builder Dave Arnold set about getting a mini ramp together. The Vert ramp came later and according to Dave came or the wood did from a skate demo at a super cross event at the NEC (National Event Centre). The subsequent sessions and comps that followed are that of folk law with many UK staple names earning their stripes and firsts on the vert with memorably massive coping. I went there at 8/9 years old and remember thinking the vert was taller than my house!
(About BMX Now comment) Think that’s sarcasm lol. The vert was a good one but that roof was a right pain! The mini was great fun. Remember that contest well. Barrow was a great spine ramp. I was well in to spines then so Barrow was great to ride. Bloody going back a bit now lol.
Mark Atkins
No big story regarding the ramps going just a case of people growing out of it and taking it for granted probably. It was soon converted back to its initial intended usage.
Thanks to all that commented or I caught up with in chasing to do so.
Thanks to all that commented or I caught up with in chasing to do so.
