Part 1 - The Early Subculture of Skateboarding in Queensland

Thank you to Slam Skateboarding Magazine editor Trent Fahey (all issues are part of the collection at State Library of Queensland) and journalists Nat Kassel and Josh Sabini. Additional thanks to photographers Mike O’Meally, Wade McLaughlin, Robbie Cameron, Jack Cassidy, and Peter Sondergaard, Rachel Torti, Andrew Viles, Toby Mellonie, Jay Musk, Sarge Jhogenson, Daniel Vincent, Mike Lawry, Kane Stewart, Izy Duncombe, Sarah Huston, Andy MacKenzie, Scott Shearer, Mark Brimson, Stu Fogarty, Curtis Hay, Mitchell Roberts and many others. And a special thanks to my fellow We Skate QLD team members, Evie Ryder, Miljana Miljevic, Brooke Manning, Connie Leung, Jingjing Yang, Lil Turek and numerous members of the Brisbane and QLD skateboarding community for sharing their knowledge.

This blog is one of a 7 part series. To view the other blogs, click here. 

Skateboarders, from beginners to individuals with skills of the highest calibre have long been turning urban environments in Queensland into playscapes and creative concrete canvases. Such ‘grey spaces’ made of concrete, steel, and stone in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, and regional areas have all been re-imagined, embraced, and adapted by skateboarders. This form of urban play, a subculture and an increasingly dynamic sport has allowed individuals to push their skills and craft. The vibrant subcultures and Olympic-level milestones skateboarders have accomplished also captured the respect of international audiences and a well-earned place amongst the best competitive skateboarders in the world. 

Skateboarding has however, not always been so revered and popular. In the 1970s it began as a fun activity for youth but by the 1980s and into the 1990s had often been pushed to the fringes of society and had to overcome significant stigma and negative perceptions. For example, a popular style known as street skating (i.e. on rails, staircases, ledges, and banks found in the city and suburbs) became a clandestine and criminalised practice in plazas such as King George Square. Skateboarding there even today can still attract fines. Yet despite the stereotypes and barriers, skateboarders continue to express resistance to restrictive play in urban settings. As this project will reveal, skateboarders have remained creative in their persistence to enliven the city with their subculture and practice, and with the major transformation of skateboarding becoming an Olympic sport, first at the Tokyo 2020 Games and then at the Paris 2024 Games. 

Over time, the subculture of skateboarding has indeed demonstrated how non-conventional play and ‘lifestyle sport’ can create a place for creative physical expression and social belonging for Queensland youth and individuals from various backgrounds. Scott Shearer, Alan Petersen, Aaron Rowe, Chad Bartie, Trent Bonham, Andrew Currie, Andrew ‘Andy’ MacKenzie, Matt Mumford and many others to be highlighted in this project have all been pivotal figures who have featured in Queensland-produced magazines and zines from the 1990s and 2000s such as Bearing Skateboarding Magazine to Slam Skateboarding Magazine, now based on the Gold Coast, and the leading magazine in Australia. All issues are available from the John Oxley Library at the State Library Queensland, which specialises in books, films, zines and ephemera produced in, and about Queensland.

Skateboarders from this era include those featured in a 1998 video Kwala: Non Regulation Fun such as Aaron Rowe, Ben Ventress, Norm Higgins and Jon Lorcan.   

Once stigmatized youth often chased by security away from street spots, and now older skateboarders also include the 138 team with Jay Musk, Norm Higgins, Taku Inoue, Hap Hathaway, and others who still skateboard but are fathers and in their 30s and 40s which can take some of the public off guard and break stereotypes that skateboarding is only a ‘youth’ culture. There are also the members of the Red Frogs crew at Godbowl such as Justin ‘Juzzy’ Vicks who have shaped a culture of faith-based bowl skateboarding that includes hosting guests such as legendary American skater Christian Hosoi. A number of these bowl, park and pool skateboarders have also featured in zines such as Thug zine and Sh!t magazine.

The Old Man Skateboarding Crew have also created a welcoming space for men skateboarders now aged 30 to 60 years old to skate and look after their community through a focus on mental health. This includes doing important fundraising for charities such as Beyond Blue. Mark Brimson, Craig Thatcher, Bradley Ehlers, Steven Pender, Mark Gaby and many others are also older skateboarders contributing to the Queensland skateboarding community.

There are many skateboarders from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s such as Trent Evans ( Pass~Port Skateboards founder), Ben ‘Neb’ Christian, Richard Tinker, Max Olijnyk (Bearing Magazine), the late Rome Torti (photographer and producer Prohibited Magazine and Nothing Else Mattress blog) Andrew Currie, David Adair, Jake Frost, Trent Fahey (Kewday Skateboards team and Slam Skateboarding), Aaron Rowe, Terry Gillespie, Gavin Clark, Ben Challenor, Hap Hathaway, Gutty Mitchell, Toby Mellonie (Wild Times zine), Andrew Viles (skate historian), Pat ‘Moon Dog’ Mooney, Cameron McIntosh, Marcel Lip, Sarge Jhogenson (Love Love gallery), Wayne and Karin Larkins (Ramp Attak), Trev Ward (LEVEL UP AUS: Academy & Training Facility), Donny Fraser (Rumble Skateboarding), Rob Lewers (Concrete Skateparks) and others who younger skateboarders today reap the rewards of their efforts in the past to build up the Queensland skate scene, various skate career trajetories and advocate for more spaces for skateboarding. 

Brisbane has a strong history of skate activism, including by the original Queensland Skateboarding Association, followed by the Brisbane Skateboarding Association (formerly Brisbane Skate Cartel). Skateboarders have also pushed for skateparks to be built and expanded, documented in my research article on skate community activism in Brisbane (Willing and Shearer, 2015) and the documentary ‘Affirmative Action: A Brisbane Skateboarding Documentary’ by Kane Stewart (2013).  Stewart’s documentary features scenes with skaters such as Dennis Durrant, Joel McKilory, Alex Lawton, Pat ‘Patty G’ Gemzik and Tommy Fynn where street skateboarding was heavily penalised such as King George Square. It also shows a pop-up skate festival in Albert Street outside Skatebiz (now closed) skateshop, with non-skaters expressing appreciation of seeing skating in the streets. The documentary also interviews skate coaches, kids and locals at Paddington skatepark discussing why skateboarding was a socially as well as physically positive activity.

Change-making has continued with a new generation of skateboarders such as Harrison Lisewski, Daniel Vincent, Jacob and Joshua Van De Lay in their 20s and 30s who launched the revamped Brisbane Skateboarding in 2024. The group, along with other younger skateboarders such as Mitchell Roberts to the queer-led We Skate QLD team, have joined older skateboarders to lobby for things such as West End Skatepark facilities to be upgraded (completed in 2025). Typical calls include for lights such as for Coorparoo, argued to be necessary due to the Brisbane hot summers and humid weather, making evenings more desirable to skate as well as accommodating people who work daylight hours.

This was just a short overview about how Queensland skateboarding evolved from its early years as a subculture. As the project progresses, more detail about the creative minds and communities will be revealed through looking at skateboarding’s visual culture, key figures and then its transformation to becoming an Olympic sport as well.

There has also been a short introduction to the growth of efforts at advocacy to open up spaces to skate, decriminalise it and push against negative stereotypes. This project is keen to hear more from individuals and groups that have been pivotal to changing the city's and publics mind about the value of skateboarding, who have pushed for new spots and parks, plus those behind current advocacy projects. The next part of this project’s blog series presents research on skate zines made in Queensland.

Dr Indigo Willing
2025 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow

Read other blogs by Dr Indigo Willing (to be released weekly):

• Part 2 - Queensland Skateboarding Zine-making Tradition
• Part 3 - Picture Us Rolling: Visual Storytellers in Queensland Skateboarding
• Part 4 - Good Company, Good Vibes: Queensland Skateboarding Businesses
• Part 5 - Rolling Out the Red Carpet: Skateboarding Icons and Everyday Heroes
• Part 6 - We Skate Too: Women, Non-Binary, Queer and Non-Traditional Skateboarders
• Part 7: Queensland’s World-Class Competitive Skateboarders 

See these Skateboarding related collections held by the John Oxley Library:

• Slam Skateboarding Magazine. 1980 - onwards, Burleigh Heads, Qld: Morrison Media Services.
• Bearing skateboarding magazine. (2000 - 2001) Brisbane: Brisbane City Council on behalf of Bearing skateboarding magazine.
• Kwala Skateboards ephemera. (1980 - 1990) Kwala Skateboards ephemera.

To get involved in Skateboarding in Queensland, see We Skate QLD