📷 Photo by Reece Leung
We have talked about how a first arrival to a famous, foreign spot is often met with a bit of disappointment regarding the reality of said spot. It’ll be cuttier, more worn down, or gnarlier than you initially expected. Do a bit of skate travel, and you’ll learn to manage expectations for your bucket list spots.
But what about a spot you know is going to be fucked? Like, the footage already conveys how cutty, worn down, and gnarly it’ll be. No way you’ll be shocked, right?
Ok, well, what if it’s worse than you even prepared for?
That was our experience in 2014, on our sole venture out to Croydon — an outer borough of London known for being the birthplace of Kate Moss and having a very large Ikea — to skate the Fairfield Halls spot made famous by Paul Shier, Nick Jensen, et al. It is U.K. spot royalty, recognizable from every Blueprint video, to Jacob Harris’ earlier projects, and right through Palasonic.