Skateboarding guff and videos since 2003.
In a past life The Terrible Company was a Coventry Scene Website doing skate videos, competitions, and skatepark campaigns.
A quick heads up that The Terrible Company blog will be moving to WordPress this week - you can find the blog’s new home at theterriblecompany.wordpress.com
I’ll go into more detail on why I made the move in another post next week, but for now head over to the WordPress to make sure you stay up to date with the latest posts.
When you get some years under you as a skateboarder, you amass a whole bunch of stories about tricks, interfering weirdos, board setups and the absolute best times when riding a skateboard. As much as we try, not every session or trip turns out the way we expect. This is the story of My Big Fat Gypsy Road Trip.
Jim The Skin is one of Coventry’s longest serving skateboarders, and has been skateboarding for the entire time I have been alive. As co-founder of the city’s skater owned shop Ride, he has been sponsored by Third Foot and Independent Trucks (even getting a double ad with his son Joe), and continues to skate a bowl better than people half his age. He has been influential for so many skateboarders in Coventry, running comps himself, or helping those who put events on in the city. His continued support of the work skaters do; from output like this very blog, to skater owned companies from the local area, and multiple skatepark improvement projects, makes him the godfather of modern skateboarding in Coventry. I interviewed him to get some more insight into the man who’s real name isn’t actually Jim.
Alfie Morrey hasn’t been skateboarding long in the grand scheme of things, but his style is totally old school. He’s very much a disciple of the church of footplants, handplants and skating raw, untamed concrete. I met him skating at my local park on my lunch break and his enthusiasm for skateboarding reminds me why I still ride about on a plank with wheels. When I asked him to put together a Top 5, he was very eager to put together a list honouring the 5 professional skateboarders he is most stoked on. - Ade
Skateboarding games are back. As mentioned previously on this blog, people are hungry for some virtual shred sledding and there are plenty of games coming to fill the void. The thing is, you can’t have a revival of skateboarding games without the franchise that popularised it. With that in mind, it seemed only fitting that against all odds, a new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game would arrive in 2020.
When I was younger, Garry Jones was one of the kids down my local park who was always out and about, always down for a skate, and always interested in more than just skateboarding. He contributed towards this very blog on many occasions donating footage, photos and even old cameras! His interest in photography proved to be something he had a great talent for, and now he is one of the UK’s most prominent skate photographers: having snapped official shots of the Team GB skaters, and photographing some of the world’s best skateboarders at Street League London and the European X-Games. I asked him some questions where he talks about photographing Tony Hawk, Jamie Foy, and of course, everyone’s favourite northerner Joxa.
I’ve known Harry Myers for over a decade, and in that time there’s been one thing you can consistently rely on him for: ridiculous ramp tricks. He skates ramps like he’s got his special meter full, and many of the tricks he does consists of 2, and sometimes 3, separate tricks melted together into one. There is no better person to act as your guide to the wildest mini ramp/lip trick clips on the Internet, so here’s Harry Myers’ Top 5 clips to get you hyped for shredding your local mini ramp. - Ade
It’s a bit of a “video game” theme this time: The two people contributing in this entry are video game developers Alex Darby and John Ribbins.
Alex Darby (also known as Darbotron) is a long time member of the games industry within the UK’s game dev capital, Leamington Spa. He was the co-creator of the DJ Hero series, and is a BAFTA member! He is also a lifelong skateboarder, with an intricate knowledge of ramp construction and skatepark design. As a long standing member of Warwickshire’s skate scene and games industry, I was curious to see who influenced him.
John Ribbins is the creator of the OlliOlli series of skateboarding games, and is Creative Director at London-based studio Roll7. As well as developing games, he runs DownRiverSpotGuide - an Instagram account about London’s most obscure and interesting places to ride the magical stunt wood. As a skateboarder who has worked on a game about skateboarding, I was curious to hear who influenced him early on in life.
