My Skate Story - Carl James Arnfield

Well it must have been in 1977 I first got a horrid plastic board for Christmas after months of pleading with my parents for a skateboard, seeing how it had no grip tape and not much bigger than a roller skate how I never killed myself on it with I will never know, .... but it got me into boarding so that's all that matters.

From that point on my parents didn't have any interest in helping me and to be honest I wouldn't have even known where to look for a skatepark at 10, so no pics exist of me on a board, which is a big shame.

So the sum all of my skateing with my buddies (Colin Maxwell, Mark Garrett) was going down hills and catamaran / knee boarding down the local ASDA car park and tick tacking up hills ?, none of us would have known what to do on a ramp if you had put one in front of us.

By the summer of 1978 I have purchase a second hand and home made deck for 30 quid, (lots of well earned pocket money) tracker trucks and red Kryps.... it was heaven compared to the little red deck.

But by the end of 1978 it was all over that was about the extent of my boarding in the 70's I am sure that sums up a lot of people sk8 history's and normally would have stayed that way.....

It wasn't until Tim Walker got real sick, he mentioned that when he got out of hospital he wanted to skateboard and I mentioned I used to board, and we agreed to give it another try. So in the Xmas of 2000 / 01, I brought some all in one boards back from the US (Voltage) and waited and waited for the weather to get warm.......and waited !

Untill in May 2001 it was time to give it a try and off we went to a little outdoor park in Low Moore Yorkshire. This was the first time I had ever rode a ramp and transition, I could only just about to a 180 on the flat let alone a kick turn.... but yet it was time to find out if we really wanted to board again ......

........ and here we are in 2004

....and we still are and having the time of our lives, and with parks a plenty we have no excuse not to board and now we have a group of hard core shredders that travel around for old skool stake jams (not that I did a skate jam back in the day)... but it just feels bloody great.

So in April 04 I headed off to California to skate the real pools amd bowls ..... and oh my god a dream come true concrete heaven .... real pools and real coping ... bliss

So all I can say is give it a try .... i have gone from a very basic skateboarder to a ok skaterboader .. and loved it..

Get on with it ! .... you will be dead soon ... live for today !

Ok so this is now 2006 ... and MAS has got a bit bigger than i thought and it just seems to be getting bigger ... awesome

nothing much has changed ... still hitting bowls and pools here and there .. and im really into mini ramp stuff, but still love the bowls and pools, so i have traveled to India (Goa) and a lot of the US to skate more pools and even 1930 fish ponds ....

it just gets better and better

2007

How times flys .... but what the hell, had a few months off due to playing guitar in loads of bands / recording / all good to me

I hit SoCal again and some awesome new parks

but back on a board now and wow it's like .... i might be a 2 trick pony (backside grings and rock and rolls) but im happy :)