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I was twelve years old when I got my first ‘proper’ skateboard, a pacer pharaoh from the local skateboard shop, Blythes. It was the spring of 1989 and I had fallen in love with a sport that would come to closely define the next 10 years of my life and continue to exert an impact on me for long afterwards.

It was also around this time that I first met Kevin Clare. Kevin was one of the top skateboarders, along with Graham and Barry (whose surnames I never knew),  in the small town where I grew up. Watching these guys skate the various banks and obstacles in the town park made me feel like I was in the presence of rock stars. They were throwing down lines that I didn’t even know were possible while doing tricks that I couldn’t name.

My mind was blown and I knew that I wanted to be just like them. The way they dressed. The way they talked. The way they handled a skateboard like it was a simple reflex action.

These guys were my heroes and my reference points. They made skateboarding look so effortless and fluid that it was all I could think about from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep

Over the following years, as many of the older generation of skaters petered out, I managed to hook up with Kevin from time to time and his style of skating still blew my mind. Watching him handle various tricks was always an exercise in inspiration. I have yet, to this day, see anyone pull an air out of the banks of Stafford town park and land in the hedge 5 feet away the way that he did. The guy had the most powerful and burly style that it was always fun to watch him tear up wherever we skated.

I still laugh when I think about some of the disagreements over tricks that I swear I made and he didn’t. It seemed so important back then but, looking back, it was funny to have that back and forth with someone I respected and looked up to. It was like the impudent young pup standing up to the wiser, older dog (and, in retrospect, he was probably right).

But the thing that blew my mind about him the most wasn’t his skating. Not even close.

It was one incident in June 1991 that will forever define my memory of him.

I was sat with a group of skateboarders in the local mcdonalds eating, at the time, a less than ideal diet of fast food. Kevin however wasn’t at the same table which I thought was strange as he’d been with us when we entered the restaurant. When I looked around I saw him sat on a table on the opposite side of the restaurant helping a severely disabled woman in a wheelchair to drink her coffee. I watched as he gently lifted the cup to her mouth and assisted her in being able to drink, noting his patience and concern for the woman, adjusting his movement of the cup accordingly to match her response. Right there and then I learnt everything that I needed to know about him and how the size of his heart far eclipsed anything he had ever done or would ever do on a board.

I saw him a few times after that, as, like many of his peers, he was concentrating on activities outside of skateboarding. Mostly it was a few words in passing or seeing him in the distance with his girlfriend or friends.

I skated with him one last time in the spring of 1993. Watching him throw down the most stylish frontside boardslides on the concrete rails in the town park was pure eye candy while seeing him launch out of the banks made me feel like I had never skated them properly. He just had it down that good. Nobody even came close.

Even after all that time he still had the ability to make me feel like the awestruck 12 year old I was when we first met.

Man, I used to love skateboarding with that guy. We were never close friends, just acquaintances at most, and I would never suggest otherwise, but he was always one of the best guys to be around. No attitude or ego, just humble and, hands down, a genuinely all-round good guy. Nobody ever had a bad word to say about him and nor would they need to.

Less than a year after we last skated together I learnt that he had been killed in a motorbike accident between Stafford and Weston. I didn’t grieve right then but looking back years later I did feel a sense of loss for someone who, without their realising it, had had a huge impact on my life and helped contribute to what are some of the best memories of my life.

What a privilege to have known such a great guy and what great times those were.

Kevin, wherever you are I hope you’re still rockin’ it.

Thanks for the memories and God bless you mate.

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