War of the Thistles 2007 Report &Photo Gallery

Words: Ali Menzies
Photos: Dale Harper, Zee Yule

First up are my apologies for this report taking so long to get written up. Bit of confusion at our end and a lot of other stuff going on. Well here it is at long last! There’s also a couple of Photo galleries down at the bottom of the article:

Skateboard Scotland once again organised the War of the Thistles for 2007. Sponsors were sought and after a lot of hard work the thing was organised and the date set for the weekend of the 21st and 22nd of April. We managed to time it pretty much perfectly to co-coincide with the opening of Transitions Extreme. If anyone does not know what or where this skatepark is by this late stage then all I can say is that you must be living under a rock. The new park in Aberdeen is sick and well deserved the first leg of the Thistles to be held there.

Aberdeen 21st April 2007

As you are all well aware WOTT consists of a jam/best trick type format where folk can win prizes and cash for the sickest tricks pulled off. There are no winners or losers and everyone just has a good time and comes away with something out of it (even if it was just a sticker or something).

First thing that we got out of the way was the Es Game of Skate in-between Jimmy Boyce trying to kill himself via the method of wallie to 12 foot drop to disaster on the quarter below. To the sound of ‘This is skateboarding, the hardest game in the world’ courtesy of Bob.

About 30 skaters entered the ES game of skate. To say that this was chaos
was a bit of an understatement. As you know most things in skateboarding are
un-organised (that’s what makes skateboarding so great and different to any
other sport). So trying to organise things never really works out the way
you planned. There were six lots of heats in groups of 5 to whittle us down
to 6 finalists. There were a few false starts and discrepancies over the
rules but eventually things kind of went to plan. There was some pretty sick
flippery going down. A couple of the heats were very closely contested. The
rules meant that there were no-second chances. No land once the trick was
set meant a letter. This makes for a pretty tough competition. I would give
you a list of the six finalists but to be honest it was lost long ago. So
sorry goes out to the names that I forgot. stand outs were Adam Stoddard,
Dave Davis (double D), Local kid Hussayn and a few others whose names have
eluded me. Hussayn had some pretty ridiculous killer tricks up his sleeve.

These strange casper variations knocked out Adam Stoddard and the rest of
the competition until it was just Hussayn and Double D left. A close battle
continued and eventually DD won the trip to Milan. Fine effort for coming
all the way up to the event 2 years in a row and winning this nice prize
courtesy of Es. Big thanks go out to Turvey and Es for being the biggest cash sponsor of the event and basically just supporting Scottish Skateboarding once again. Much Respect!!

Once the Game of Skate was over. The first sesh that I properly watched was the half pipe session (with the oververt bowled out end). This was pretty nuts with Div’s Backside smiths on the oververt corner and Stu Graham going at ridiculous speeds. Benson was also killing it. 12 year old Kieran from Balmedie dropped into the over vert on his third attempt and won himself a new deck which made for quality viewing. Sean Allison’s massive backside 5-0 revert was crazy and earned him 30 quid after he did not accept 10 quid for almost making it so many times.

Next up was the flat bank followed by the fun box sesh. The flat bank took a beating with a massive Kickflip from Conhuir Lynne, some tech flips from Double D and Stoddard. Colin Kennedy was also getting some nice pop out of the bank. The fun box took over and Will from Livi was killing it with a massive Kickflip following by a backside 180 flip that was as smooth as you like. I passed him a few quid for his troubles. Conhuir’s kickflip transfer over the whole box was just silly and would not be beaten.

As you can imagine the new bowl at the park was getting a serious sessioning along with the rest of the park throughout the entire day. There are no real words to describe the bowl as it is beyond amazing. Everyone was loving it and the final cash prize session went off. Dave Allen was doing some nice hand plants followed by a nasty hipper which I’m sure is probably still a bruise to this day. Colin Taylor was ripping it up too with nice big indy and methods which were properly solid. His runs earned him a few quid. As usual div and Benson picked up a few bucks from the bowl sesh too. Woody’s 540 transfer was amazing too and 20 quid was had for that one. Big props and condolences need to go out to Andy Scott who managed to write his car off in Dundee on his mission up to WOTT. No one was hurt fortunately and even after that, he managed to have the most ridiculous run in the bowl which included an amazing kickflip indy to finish the cash kitty off.

The day was a complete success and most of the travellers stayed in Aberdeen to check out a rock concert of some sort. FIST team was apparently in full effect, no sure if anyone got their rat oot though? Next year you Dundonians need to bring your big ol bus to Dumbarton too.

On to the next leg…

Dumbarton 22nd April 2007

I turned up at about 2 o’clock at the park after toiling through all the real bad traffic, expecting to see a full car park. To be honest I was a wee bit worried as it looked less busy than a Thursday night (not what I was hoping for). Obviously the night before and been quite a heavy one for the folk that stayed in Aberdeen. The mission, roadwork’s and accidents were not helping people’s ETA either. Eventually we got things kicked off with a fun box sesh. Tom Shimmin was ripping up the park. His willy grind along the box was stuck twice good and proper (only cause I don’t think that Bob could believe his eyes the first time that he saw it). I’m fairly sure that Tom walked away with a silly amount of product.

Next up was the real steep bank which hangs over the back of the bowl. Colin Taylor earned himself a few quid with a blunt to fakie on it. Wee Will made the most styling frontside rock and roll on it too to the tune of 20 quid. A few more tricks went down but I forget all the details. I do remember a hung over Div cruising straight in and having his first trick on this gnarly obstacle without even a sniff of a warm up.

In-between a couple of the prize sessions at Dumbarton there was a pretty fun wee sesh going on the foam pit. The foam pit is pretty nuts and made for some quite amusing viewing. Div was definitely the most amusing part of this affair. He climbed up the vertical wallride beside the foam and stood in
drop in position at the top. Cue Sanderson/Dave Allen with the shout of
revert and he bloody reverted down the vert wall 12 foot into the foam. To
say that this was funny was a serious understatement. he then proceeded to
do a mayday into it to that was ridiculous. After a few supermans into the
foam it was back to comp next door.

As usual the bowl Jam went off. Big thanks to Adio for sponsoring both the bowl Jams over the weekend. Div was clearing the big gap from the big end of the bowl into the wee end at a phenomenal speed. The jam was chaos and there was all sorts of snaking going on. Lots of kids won nice es shoe vouchers and they were very stoked. The most memorable trick for me in the bowl was Conhuir Lynne’s 360 flip to fakie which was clean as you like. That along with how well he skated the day before won him the coveted first ever Skateboard Scotland Shralpher aware. This year the prize was only 50 quid donated straight from the Skateboard Scotland Kitty. Well and truly deserved for a man from Ireland that just got back from States and then drove all the way up for the event.

Big Thanks to all the sponsors from this years event as without your support these events do not happen. Special thanks to the cash sponsors as this is why the experienced riders make the trip. Here are your props: