CSC Go Skate Day 2021

We know Go Skate Day is supposed to be the 21st June but, in the true spirit of skateboarding, we said fuck that, we'll do it when we want to. And so, 5 days later, on the 26th June, hordes of skaters from South Wales and beyond descended to the centre of the universe, Bute Square, to celebrate our wonderful little pastime. Because when have skaters ever been on time anyway?

Since hosting a Go Skate Day event at Bute is a big ABD, we got our best and brightest creative minds to work tirelessly to come up with exciting new challenges for everyone, which mostly meant trying to piece together scattered, lager-addled memories of what we did last time.

After a dodgy start to the day, with morning showers threatening to ruin all our carefully thought-out plans, the skate gods took pity on us, the rain stopped, and the fun could begin. With the help of countless legends, we transformed Bute into a makeshift skatepark with ledges, rails, and kickers in all shapes and sizes. We were absolutely blown away by the turnout and it was sick to see plenty of new faces among the usual suspects so big up everyone who came down and made it a day to remember.

First, we kicker-ed things off (sorry) with a jump-ramp send-it-session, courtesy of Fore-Cast and Fifty-Fifty who were kind enough to bless us with their ramps, big ups. The ramps did the rounds of Bute with people sending it straight to flat, going over the pole, or slamming straight into it. Eventually we set up an evil looking kicker-to-kicker death trap where anyone with the plums could go full Evel Knievel. Honourable mentions go to Brayden (sorry if that's not how you spell your name) who sent it harder than Royal Mail and took home the glory, and Oscar for being a show off and doing it switch.

Obviously we had to bring back everyone's favourite event, the box car race, where teams of two raced round Bute with one person perched atop their deck in a cardboard box and the other pushing - basically like Cool Runnings but without the ice. The high-octane pursuit saw plenty of crashes but, luckily, everyone came out unscathed, except for a couple of bruised egos.

Next up, we moved down to the lesser skated end of Bute for a wallride jam, making use of the jump-ramps to transform a usually unexciting wall into a makeshift vert ramp. The treacherously skinny jump ramp took no prisoners, with skaters getting flattened against the wall Wile E Coyote style. After everyone finished slamming themselves into the wall, Jake Tucker shut the session down with a ridiculous power ollie into the kicker off the top of the highest wall he could find, all while clutching a can of Stella. What a hero.

It wouldn't be a skate event without a powerslide challenge, so you know we had to crack out the wax and ice up the floor while Bute Square purists looked on and wept. Everyone channeled their inner Leo Valls and showed off an impressive variety of powerslides in the hopes of sliding their way to eternal glory and winning some free clobber.

Finally, Wicked Carver, Sam Pulley, stepped up to front the most eagerly anticipated product toss since the early 2000s. With people of all ages hungrily waiting for their chance to get a free skateboard deck, the scramble to get to the prizes quickly became a fight to the death with people and product flying left, right and centre.