Bristol's hidden stars: Louis Cooper-Robinson skateboarder

This week’s installment of Hidden Stars  has gone slightly more underground, meeting up with semi-professional skateboarder and University of Bristol student Louis Cooper Robinson. Louis gives us Hidden Stars the low-down on the skate scene in Bris­tol, as well as explaining what it takes to stay at the top of the skateboarding game whilst studying for a degree.

Skateboarding is quite an under­ground sport in the UK and not your stereotypical sport. Are there many different types of skateboarding?

Yeah there is massive variation between skaters. The main distinc­tion is between vert skaters who do all the bobby big airs kitted up with pads on half pipes; and then you have the competition skaters who win big bucks through placing well in the nationals and European championships. The other, more common category, which I fall into, is the street skaters. I tend to focus on doing photo shoots for magazines and filming around cities using stairs, blocks and large urban spaces.

For those that don’t know that much about skating what does be­ing a semi-professional skater and a university student actually entail?

Being sponsored means I have to represent the brands of shoe and board companies by skating in their products in photo shoots, events and videos. Skateboarding is a physi­cally intense sport which you can get pretty rusty at if it’s not done daily. It can be hard to balance the pressures from your sponsors nagging you to get photos for magazines and film­ing for promotional videos on top of getting your reading done for uni­versity and maintaining a social life!

Skateboarding is not a society or club at Bristol, why is this the case?

I think the skateboarding identity is quite unique as a sport because it becomes a lifestyle affecting all areas of your time, in addition to having quite an exclusive set of values. Skateboarding often goes against mainstream sporting norms ...and tends to keep away from be­ing institutionalised and corporate. Therefore having a society for skate­boarding wouldn’t really fit in with skateboarding culture. However, having a university society could be a good possibility for beginners.

What is the skate scene like in Bristol?

Bristol’s got a really decent scene and is right at the top of its game compared to other UK cities. This is mainly due to the architecture of the city and the lack of a crack down on skating in public places, unlike in London. People have been killing it for years here in Bristol, all centered around the notorious 5050 skate shop on Park Street.

Are there designated skateboard­ing areas? Do you ever have any trouble with the police or univer­sity security?

Yeah Bristol is littered with good skate parks mainly on the outskirts, such as Horfield, St. Georges and Dean Lane. These are obvious places for skaters to chill, however part of the skateboarding phenomena is to adapt to the streets which aren’t made for skateboarding, creating another use for the streets. In this way a simple set of stairs becomes a breeding ground for skaters. There are huge clashes with skaters want­ing to do tricks on areas that are private property and being chucked out by security guards. Often it can lead to quite confrontational situ­ations where the old bill is called!

How often do you try and skate?

I usually try and skate daily either hanging out with mates around the city or at a skate park. Or, if I’m more up for it then shooting photos. How­ever at the moment I’m recovering from a pretty hefty scaphoid frac­ture in my wrist so I’m taking it easy otherwise arthritis is on the cards.

Considering it is such an indi­vidual sport is there any rivalry or competition between skaters? Would you say there is a divide between different types of skate­boarders?

There’s not serious rivalry but dif­ferent sponsor’s teams have a bit of a laugh with each other at events and parties. In terms of the type of skaters themselves you get the more gnarly ones who leap down big sets of stairs and grind handrails as opposed to the more technical skaters who focus on more flips, grinds and difficult tricks.

How do you get recognised as a skateboarder? Do you enter com­petitions?

If you mean identified as a skate­boarder maybe the plank of wood under my arm gives it away? More seriously, often the clothes, shoes or hats skaters wear are particular skat­ing brands and so if you are in the know you could spot a semi-pro or pro skater in a crowd. I’m more of a street skater than a comp dog, but I enter the UK championships and other local competitions from time to time. I’ve previously won a video competition in Side Walk magazine, which was judged by US profession­als. It played a big part in me get­ting my current sponsorship deal.

Skateboarding can be quite a dan­gerous sport, have you ever had any serious or career threatening injuries?

As I was saying earlier about my wrist that’s probably the biggest blow to my skateboarding as the recovery time is a long one. It can also get you into sticky situations with the authorities, for example when I was in Vietnam I was skating this square and my board flew out from under­neath me and smashed an ancient flower vase. Instantly I was grabbed by the military and police and told I was going down to the station, I was absolutely bricking it, but a small bribe convinced them to let me go, although that was a pretty big hiccup!

What is the worst thing about skateboarding?

Injuries have got to be the biggest downfall of skateboarding, my shins are constantly getting knocked about and chucking yourself down a flight of stairs over and over does quite a bit of damage to your body. Another aspect is the negative attitude towards skat­ers from the authorities, after a while constant clashes are really tiresome.