1977: SKATEBOARDING Craze Hits the UK | Nationwide | Niche Sports | BBC Archive 

40mph back in 1977 is the equivalent to 106mph in 2023. I can see why that man was so concerned!

40 quid in January 1977 is £306.48 in November 2023.

I was one of the kids who spent hours on those slopes under the South Bank. Nothing like the purpose-built bowls and half pipes that appeared around London in due course... There was a clear "baddink-baddunk" on the geometric edges of these "banks". No curves at all. Just level or angled. "Baddink-baddunk!" In the end (1979?) they spread gravel under the South Bank to get rid of the skaters. It worked. And sometimes, if you tried to sweep the gravel away from a patch, two uniformed officers would get out of an unmarked maroon Hillman Hunter or similar and stroll over as they put their caps on, to politely suggest other uses of your time. Civilised times. Around the same time, one of the first McDonalds had opened next to Charing Cross Station, just across the river... If anyone had any spare money, there was the chance to pop across Hungerford Bridge and buy a tiny bag of very salty, very thin chips... a concept that was then quite new and somehow exotic in the UK. We used to charge round to the South Bank on our boards from school in Blackfriars.... Pumping from side to side brought a sort of perpetual motion. Carefully timed swings of the school bag worked too. Over Blackfriars Bridge and right onto Upper Ground. Glorious days of innocence and nothingness. The grumpy man with the predictions of doom didn't quite get it right. Skateboard deaths never became an issue. I remember hanging onto the pole of Routemaster buses on Lower Richmond Road in heavy traffic until the conductor shooed us off. No helmets. No sense. Gardening gloves and good luck. It's all a lot more specialised now, but I'm glad that my own children (now adults) spent their teens ripping down fast descents on bicycles and jumping from trees. Youth is for the young. 😊

i was of that skateboard generation, now 61 years old, and skateboarded at every opportunity. To listen to the knob at 3:40 needlessly alarm the public on something he clearly knew nothing about, brings back memories of how some shortsighted people of that time discouraged the sport and kids from developing a talent. People are still skateboarding today.

Seems the BBC editors for this story were being a bit cheeky. When that councilman (?) was berating skateboarding, they were showing kids performing some pretty advanced moves. If the Beeb was truly worried, the editors would have spliced in film of kids falling like ragdolls with maybe a random shot of a speeding ambulance during Mr Dooman'gloom's voiceover.

Those flared trousers must have had a kind of airbrake effect and slowed them down a bit!

Brilliant archive footage! some really talented kids those early boards were challenging to say the least :).

Loved the UK skate scene in the late 70’s. Aged 59 now. At night, stoned, I sometimes skate the concrete bank outside the town hall in the Village I live in, Northern Thailand. It makes me laugh. ✌🏼

I lived my youth with a skateboard and many friends . Great times, now 60.

1977, Star Wars, Punk and Skateboarding 🛹

All I had was an old plank with some rollerskate bits nailed to it.

Interesting to see kill joys existed then as they do now,like yourself I’m of the same generation and to be honest I enjoyed myself and accepted the knocks and bangs as par for the course it didn’t stop me

The dude in the red roll neck is awesome

I got one in 1978 when I was 12. It had soft rubbers and when it got to a certain speed, it developed an oscillation called 'speed wobbles' which seemed connected to the ease at which it turned. My father took the mickey endlessly about speed wobbles. I never got a board with firmer rubbers and after a couple of years grew out if it.

That’s me with the hurty shoulder! It’s better now 😂

Why doesn’t the BBC do programmes like this anymore?

I vaguely remember the expression "Sidewalk surfing", or "Sidewalk surfboard", back in the day.

Was absolutely huge here in Australia in the 70s - only extra issue was we did it barefoot !! (a very Aussie thing to do)

I’m scrolling down the comments and I’m struggling to see anyone mention the obvious comment: the site is still exactly the same and being skateboarded today… totally covered in graffiti now though.

Where did they find such posh kids..... I suppose they were the only ones who could afford them

Before the ollie was invented.

This is pure gold

I have memories of nationwide filming in front of the angel on Brighton seafront.

What a brilliant report. Its funny how things that are painted as the scourge of inner cities soon become really positive ways to stop kids from potentially doing worse things. I wonder when the broader skateboard became popular. Any actual skater want to weigh in? Let go old school instead of just googling it 5:10 good grief save the children lol although i have to say that the electric scooters present a far more dangerous proposition as I see them flying along pavements at dreadful sp... oh god I'm old.

Tiny skateboards, eloquent youths and flares, such wonderful memories 👍

I want to bemoan the Americanisation of this country but this was quite nice natured.

I missed out on these , 77 was the year i got my first motorbike - a 50cc Motobecane and it cost my dad £10 lol ...

These are the coolest kids ever lived on earth and truly lived their life to fullest ❤

I wonder what kind of interviews you'd get from London kids these days?

They must be around 60 today.

And they're still there today! (Not sure it's entirely the same bunch mind.)

You Can't Move History. Long Live Southbank!

They were well articulate :)

To this day the reporter is still rolling along the South Bank unable to get off…

It started off reasonable and then turned into an episode of the day today with that alarmist!

The first time I saw a skateboard was on Charlie Brown when the kids were using them to get to and from school (I guess it was already very familiar to Americans but hadn't yet hit the UK). I had never heard of such a thing, and was baffled that they were standing on boards with wheels on without any explanation. Culture divisions! :D

Rich kids

57 and just erected a half pipe in my back garden after years of dreaming. The kids are a bit non plussed!

Not a phone in sight. Every kid living in the moment. Happy days

The accident rate would be half that of pedestrian accidents. So skateboarding is two times safer than walking. Guy was struggling.

1:03 A skater 1:50 A tool

Looks like the same place where they're always skateboarding today.

Skateboarding is not a crime!

What a narc that one dude was. 😅

3:45 skills

£60 is like £450 now, must have been a good one

No helmets, knee pads or elbow pads. Kids were a lot tougher back then (or so they thought).

"I don't like new things." - certain people of EVERY generation 🤦‍♂️

Seamless editing after the presenter's fall 😅 !

Not an ollie in sight!

'Elf and Safety' making a mountain out of a molehill back in the 70s as well. How time has proven them wrong!

And now we have electric bikes and scooters.😂

Get those hooligans off the street, what has happened to this country!!!!

Only wealtheir kids could afford these boards, most of the kids I knew had made theirs from pieces of wood with roller skates screwed on them. Can you imagine the kids of today from less well off families being content with having to make their own from bits and pieces in the shed, they would be claiming 'skateboard poverty'.

… A new activity known as ‘skateboarding’. 😆😆

Ahhhhh, the Rodney Mullen inspired generation

Try 89.41 mph on a skateboard!

Youth is the most precious thing in life; it is too bad it has to be wasted on young folks. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I wanted to hear a kid say "totally stoked dude" with that British accent😂😂

So refreshing to hear the young people speak so well. Unlike the kids today who can hardly string a sentence together.

🔥🔥🔥

"Beardedman" ought not be allowed to open his mouth until he's grown a brain

Its just a fad, It will never catch on!

Rodney was over in America creating the tricks that have turned skateboarding into what it is today. Mullen is the God Father.

They were better then than today’s skateboarders. I was 15 when this was filmed, and tried skateboarding, but didn’t have anywhere like this where I grew up, to try it out properly.

English kids skateboarding just looks goofy to me the same with surfing.... i dont know just looks odd, working class kids in a grey rainy day up north and not the sunny californain strip.

Twas 12 when this Craze hit in the North East of the Country, We made our own boards out of old Rollerskates and wood. £40 in 1977 would have bought you a Car ffs

They are not as good as Rodney trotter on a skateboard.

Lords of Dogtown they ain't

My dad made my mam a skateboard of an old ironing board with the wheels of an old tonka toy nailed to it. She loved it until she fell off and ruptured her spleen.

Real child/teenage hood before smartphones turned everyone into glued to their screens zombiesx🫢🫣🫢🫣🫢🫣🫢🫣 x