'Rollin' Through the Decades' (70s excerpt)

Title: 'Rollin' Through the Decades' (70s excerpt)
Director/Camera/Editor: Winstan Whitter
Editor: Ben Leighton
Production: Beaquarr Productions
Year: 2004
Duration: 23mins
Synopsis: Rollin' takes you on a sensational journey from the first emergence of skateboarding culture in the UK from the 1970s, looking deeper into the short, yet rich history of skateboarding to the global phenomenon it is today.
Around 1979 sees the end of the initial skateboarding wave in the UK. Rolling Thunder, the only indoor skate park has just shut its doors. Skateboarding at this time is kept alive only by a handful of diehards and by 1983 the English Skateboard Association began to group together what was left of the UK's skateboarding scene.
A small revival occurred in 1985 due to its association with films like; "Back To The Future" and other movie influences from America. This wave began to gain international exposure and boosted the growth of a new generation and the opening of new skate parks. Yet once more during the 1990's, due to lack of organisation and falling revenues, skate parks and skate shops closed, magazines folded and people lost interest, Skateboarding went back underground.
In the early 2000s across the Atlantic, commercial momentum was steadily building, exemplified by the 'X-Games' and the ubiquitous 'Tony Hawk Pro Skater' video game. Skateboarding worldwide had come back with a vengeance, spawning the new extreme generation of skateboarders that's helped create a solid foundation of skateboarding in the UK.