The Groans Brigade x Dadlands 'Voltarol Open' 2022 - photo gallery and report

Text and colour portraits by Ben Powell.

Black and white portraits and all skate photos by Tim Smith.

“This feels like Radlands carpark 20 years ago…”

This was the reoccurring refrain heard numerous times from amidst the arthritic chaos of the inaugural Groans Brigade x Dadlands Voltorol Open.

Held in the newly revamped carpark of Rollersnakes’ Derby store which has had a post-Covid makeover of epic proportions, this was an event with, as far as I’m aware, no precursors in the UK. As ever, the street-inclined older generations are lagging behind their vertical counterparts who have been hosting and promoting events aimed at the older demographic (poetically re-imagined as the ‘Masters Division’) for years. As far as the street-focused old farts are concerned, there seems scant opportunity to celebrate podgy mediocrity outside of tongue-in-cheek Instagram stories bemoaning the emptiness of our collective trick bags and/or the series of Tired videos.

Cue the voltron of The Groans Brigade and Dadlands.

Dave Davies - backside noseblunt in a shower of Groans.

Russ Cowling.

With both birthed initially as nothing more dramatic than Instagram accounts designed to record the fading skill sets of still avid but not quite adept skateboarders of a certain age, it seemed fated that at some point the two would converge.

As Russ Cowling of Dadlands recalls:

“It started as a lockdown joke and was originally just a place for us to dump our carpark clips, but as soon as I’d posted a couple of clips I could see friends on Insta were also skating carparks so I messaged them asking for their clips just to make it more interesting. Before I knew it, I had a queue of clips from strangers around the world, and it has just gained momentum from there.”

Ron Calow and his bluntslide, parting the sea of dads.

The genesis of The Groans Brigade was similarly organic:

“Groans started as a running joke between Horse (@sidewalkhorse), Chis (@r.j.chisholm) and me (@michael_k_wright_design) during the first Covid lockdown. We’d all known each other for years through the skate and music scenes in Notts, all three of us had fallen out of love with the four wheeled torture device for the standard midlife reasons and because the people we would normally skate with were all way better than the three of us combined.”

Mike Wright.

Portraits: Ben Powell

Daz Pearcy - backside feeble.

Bambi - nosepick.

Mike’s experience mirrored that of so many middle-aged-shredders (pun intended) with dawn patrol skatepark missions reigniting the damp charcoal of low performance.

“Skating together, as early as possible at the weekends, seemed like the best way to get back in at the bottom rung of the performance sport boarding ladder without exposing our fragile egos to the judging eyes of da yoot. Lols and scabs followed. Stupid ideas followed beers. Stupid stickers. Stupid tees. Really stupid over-complicated wax. Before we knew it, we had a brand and an ethos that seemed to resonate with a lot of people.”

Joe Habgood - extension frontside grind.

Portraits: Ben Powell

With both sets of eyes aimed on a very specific demographic clutching leaking trick bags and collecting painkillers, it was inevitable that their paths would cross eventually. As Russ of Dadlands puts it:

“We naturally just gravitated towards each other, Toby (Batchelor) who worked at Rollersnakes and Mike (Wright) who was one of the three idiots behind The Groans Brigade both had clips on the Dadlands insta so we had that connection straight away. From pretty early on I’d daydreamed about doing an event themed around both communities and then Mike and Toby suggested doing it at Rollersnakes as they both worked there and the car park had just been transformed into a low impact shred zone.”

Dan Cates - hydrant stall shove-it.

Ben Plumb - nosepick to fakie.

After a false start due to Covid and bad weather last year, both parties were resolute in their intent to make something happen this time around and happily both the sun and the country’s viral status managed to play ball this time.

Putting events on can be a nerve-wracking business at the best of times, so when you throw in the fact that said event is aimed at people with real life commitments like jobs, kids and arthritis, it’s reasonable to feel a certain degree of trepidation. The fact was that nothing like this had really ever been done before in the UK, outside of the well-established vert circuit of course.

The heads at the helm were genuinely concerned that nobody would turn up.

It’s one thing pressing like on an Instagram post inviting those with diminishing skills to come and session together - it’s another thing entirely peeling your lazy arse off the sofa and actually attending.

Portraits: Tim Smith

JT - backside smith.

Both Russ and Mike expressed a similar sense of relief that the mature skate crowd still had it in them to travel on the day:

“Personally, I was really nervous the week leading up to the event. It’s easy to get a ‘like‘ on the internet but will anyone actually bother getting in their car and coming to this thing? We hoped for 100 people but it ended up being more than double that. Unbelievable really.”

Ron Calow - hydrant backside 180.

Nathan Hines - lein to tail.

Mike’s feelings were similar to those of his Dadlands counterpart:

“Honestly, I was expecting a about a hundred people at the absolute maximum and assumed they’d be made up of locals and people directly connected to both crews. Equally I expected the ‘session’ to consist more of oldies mostly milling around, talking about how they used to be able to do a hardflip in 1997, and how much their ankle still hurts from ’that’ roll that ended their skating in 2009 - so to get 200+ people turn up, with some genuinely good skating going on, was a mind bender.”

John Robson - early grab air.

Alex Weijers - sweeper.

Interestingly, a comment made independently by a number of attendees who’d travelled hundreds of miles to get there revolved around the fact that the generation who are in their 40s and 50s today grew up in a British skate scene where regularly travelling to events all over the nation was commonplace.

As Joe Habgood put it: “20 years ago most of the people here would see each other every other weekend at some event or another, whereas these days it’s common not to see each other for decades. That sucks. I want an excuse to see my balding friends – more of this shit please!”

Portraits: Tim Smith

The format of the day was pretty loose: slowest manual, best kerb combo, most unfortunate fall (shout out pressure flip tailslide to arm destruction guy), most clung onto ride away (all of them honestly) and of course, the inaugural National Championship of Andrew Horsley’s made up game ‘Pegnet’ which, rather fittingly, was won by a 4-year-old.

Basically, imagine a car park sesh with 200 old farts struggling to conjure up tricks that once came easily and you’re close to the atmosphere.

Skaters notable mainly due to their outright disregard for the assumed level of mediocrity included Ronny Calow who shows absolutely zero signs of slowing down at 45; Dave Davies, (who although slightly younger than the post 40 demographic still managed to tick the kids/real job/intense fatigue boxes), who basically FSU all day culminating in the ender-ender flip back noseblunt; Dan Cates who’s still limber at 65 or whatever age he actually is, and of course the angry Bear himself, Joe Habgood, who ‘got mad and then got even’ with the quarterpipe.

Really, far too much went on to catalogue here, which is why there is an array of photographs for you to soak up the Tiger Balm infused atmosphere visually.

It was a massive success. The dads and mums all went home happy. And in pain.

Huzzah.

Until next time...

Last words for the organisers:

“The oldest skater was 57 - can’t remember her name, she turned up in a massive mobile home with her partner. Longest journey was Harry Palmer - @h_palmer627 - who came 189 miles from Cumbria. What a boss!

HUGE thanks to all the guys at Rollersnakes, especially Toby for going way beyond the norm to make the event happen.

Mega props to Ed Bowen, Alan Rushbrooke (DJ Anal Misery), Adam (Monster Network), Horse and Forde Brookefield.

Respect to all the sponsors - Santa Cruz, Indy, Enjoi, New Deal, Welcome, Vans, New Balance Numeric, Etnies, Heathen, Youth Club, Thrasher, Jessup, Shiner, Keen Dist, Tony Wood and Rollersnakes - the carpark at Snakes is free to skate whenever the store is open, go take advantage of that!

There will be another event next year, which we’ve already got a bunch of stupid ideas for. It might be called ‘Voltarol Open 2 - More Grey, More Pain’, but it might not. Horse has been getting the Groans’ moon base factory fired up to make some high-level products like the ‘Groan-master 5000 Stair-lift’ and some Olympic spec Pegnet kits - it’s all go all the time at The Groans Brain Trust.”

Here's a reminder of the Rollersnakes edit from the day, filmed & edited by Forde Brookfield.