I had a nice indoor vert ramp in 77/78 that saw a lot of action from the likes of Peter Aitken, Adrian Jones, and Tony Man - until Wedge hit it with his full force.
It was distinctly over-vert from then on …
Treasures from the vault -Melbourne 78-80
Fletch ,that is almost a straight wall ride but it shows how keen we were to skate any sort of tranny.
Noel , great pics ,thanks for sharing .
Western suburbs, being SUNSHINE, I wasnt there never got past a Condor and plastic job from the news agents, did crack the base plates, Sunshine got a roller skating rink, sunshine had Koriot creek running through it with a Pommy, Scot, Raaf etc end of town. Ya had a rock hole that took 20 cars and a foot bride.
With the rink and first gen of son,s came the Rock hole boy,s who if felt fit would rack you over the head with ther speed skate that were tied together of an evening. Next gen being the younger brothers went to board and heading down to Rubble and Riche,s, grabbed blue T,s and got a skate logo ironed, wouldnt have the faintest what it was now, along with the white lettering and tagged them self,s the Rock Lobsters, they had name on front and a number. Approx 8 ft quarter vert may be foot, 4 inch top sat inside Sunshine High School, later to end up in the car park at the local fish and chip shop who paid to keep the shop safe, at this point in time I remember to of the fitter girls in town enter a panal van each if ront of the greas,os for a little race, bad memory puts the winner at 12 to 16, memory flailing, Albion were there were tennis courts had similar ramp, played on the 1/4 at the high with the deck I had.
A cousin that lived in Deer Park rolled with a crew that had brown T shirts and I think thay were Laser something or other.
Hope makes sensce, no proofing, dont know much else, just some names, might light a fire. If you read in last 5 minutes it needed proofing.
On the subject of teams, animosities and rivalry-
first up- Natural design team came years before anyone in Melbourne- a loose knit bunch including Fletch (who I’m sure you know), Ash Ragg, Rob Baddeley (Fish Pond pioneer - actually found it I believe) Fidess, Vass the slalom /set up guru. Natural Design was a surf shop in Ivanhoe of all places. This was in like 1976.
By late in '77 when the first vert 1/4 pipes were appearing, 3 different “ramp demo” teams started up within months of each other
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GFI Radlads- Glen Waverley/Mt Waverley locals - Marty Kent , Andy Tennant (see pics here), Peter Bradford, whose dad helped promote the whole deal and hook up the Coles sponsorship, Brad Smith, occasionally myself, Glen Gustke and a few others.
The name “Radlads” in itslef was cause enough for bagging from all sides, but as usual, mostly from the Noble Park contingent. -
Radlanders - Noble Parl locals including John McGrath and Sac Reynolds, Sac’s brother Dean, Ching, as well as the now deceased Norman Edwards and Tery Probin. A little bit neanderthal (they all rode “functional” dick nosed, straight railed decks with nailed on “foot trap” kicktails instead of the smoothly hand shaped boards we “pussies” prided ourselves on. Regardless of this, Dean and Johnny were pretty much as good as anyone back then and did some of the very first airs seen locally.
Sac and Norm would always bag us for being “down southers” - basically a reference to them (Radlanders) being essentially Dogtowners and “us” (ie: everyone else) being like Ty Page on some other mellow cat San Diegan knob jockey. -
Sparx team - started by the Hills, with myself and Bret Connoly as the resident media superstars.
We generally had the best ramps, sponsorship deals and media coverage, although none of us could individually claim to be the best skaters of the time.
This was because of the Hills burgeoning talent at grabbing the media spotlight, something that obviously continued throughout the 80’s and beyond.
I think you get the idea why there was a fair amount of testosterone flying around, and everyone pretty much dissed everyone else.
Regardless, there were some super rad skaters from all 3 areas, perhaps most of the guys listed above having “their day” at one location or another , be it at Fishpond, Dolphin and Greene’s pools, the Don Lane /GFI/Sparx demo ramps and the first ricketty “half pipes” of the time.
To be honest, I’m not sure if anyone ever really came to blows, although I know I wanted to beat the crap out of Sac once or twice when he snaked me at Doveton…pity I was too much of a Ty Page girly man to do anything about it…would have been satisfying, yeah
There’s a bit more detail and pics on my website - see the link below if these dang things work
Luving this thread Noel ,and thanx again for the joe90 dvd,pure gold.
Funny you mention the Joe90 dvd. I watched a bit of it last night.
keep the photos coming they are great.
I will always remember the fist time i met Sac and the Radlanders. who knows what year it was but is was after we’d been skating the fish pond for a fair while. For those who don’t know it was between Eltham and Montmorency which in those days was “out in the sticks”.
This noisy bunch of F@#kers turned up and sat with their legs dangling down the banks the probably thought no one would ride. being a shy type born and bred in West Heidelberg(made Noble park look like toorak 
) I proceeded to kick turn between Mad Dogslegs, (can’t recall his real name) , much to his obvious delight as he threatened to kick the shit of of me, never did though, we actually got on quite well after a while.
I remember Dean ripping and Ching had a nice surfy style different from the rest who muscled their bodies around the curves of the pond, Johnee just did whatever he wanted. So did Sac in his own way. Some may have taken them as intimidating, to me they were just more skaters and it was always great when the sessions at the pond got hot.
The divisions are quite amusing to look back on, me a smartarse from west heidelberg, sponsored by a shop in up market snobby Ivanhoe and all my skating mates from Ivanhoe grammer. The roughheads from Noble park with the blood bath as it’s epicentre. The Mt/Glen waverley boys with their toilet roof and later on, spiffy ramps, which i never skated 
.Skating brought us all together and the raddest bit is catching up again after all that time
So many memories of the 70’s, skating with Wedge, Glen Gustke, Noel plus many others on the dunny roof in Tallyho as it was known then was one of my favorite ones. Meeting up with guys like Sac, Johnny, ching, Baddeley, Fletch etc at the Hat factory Fish pond in Montmorency was another great time that sticks in my head. That place was like our first skate park and a great place to catch up with skaters from all over the metro area. This is one of my Favorite pics, me on Muzza’s. I cant remember who it was but someone jammed an old table from the abandond Hat factory up on top of muzza’s wall and it was on lol. Great times.
We draged that table out of the building down below on the banks of the creek, seemed to jam in perfectly against the lamp post, I also remember concreting some of the lip sections so we could get up onto the flat top for lip slides.
I reckon i nearly lived at the pond for 2 yrs of my youth, was the closest thing to surfing, so many angles lines and curves
Terry,s bro used to live out in Heidelburg,many visits as we would purchase some goodies from him.We fitted into the Heidlburg surroundings,bit like home.When they started building the skate-park there me and tp(r.i.p)and others would stay at pro,s pad.Few dramas with the local thugs ,but all was sorted and locals were cool.Yeah fletch fish pond dayz were some of the best.Russel and Dave the older surfer dudes become good friends with the Rad-Land boyz.Crew from everywhere ,sometimes heated but hey we were all full off juice and YES i was a loud mouth yuck.Mate a bit of rivalry between a bunch of you punks builds character and there is plenty of that from the 70,s crew fuck,n rad.And by they way fletch did you steel that ramp of us ,looks very similar nearly same graffiti.Peace 
watch out, I think I have the famous Don Lane ramp “octoclopse” pic at hand somewhere. This, for the unititated was an 8 man brown eye- although I think a few had fallen off the platform - there’s only 5 in view I think.
I know one arse is Bret Connoly’s as he proudly told me it was many times, one ching I do believe, maybe a Sac rump in there too.
I’ll post it up and you old Radlanders can do some train spotting of the various arses.
I think what amused me the most about the Radlanders was Radland speak- little stories like Kelvin being “reluctant to use the telephone”- it apparently being a “foreign instrument” to him, Norm always with a story about squeezing stupendous black heads, Dean and Sac outdoing each other with fibs about who’d been doing “4 foot at least bro” airs, either just before we arrived or straight after we’d left, or how Lee “Maddog” Fueler was actually super rad even though I’d never seen him hit the lip -
maybe that was just a series of off days.
The Rosanna boys had real ingrained style, some of the Glen Waverley crew were rad no doubt, but the Radlanders did almost hit legend status just by pumping up each other’s talents by word of mouth…awesome stuff and endlessly entertaining. Not to say they weren’t good- they were, they just told you about it alot more than most people would.
hey fletch thats one ugly ramp and very rad you got so high on it.
and for poeple coming to blows it did happen but it was just character building stuff.as for the team stuff wished we worked together a bit more like we do with moss because we could have achieved a hell of alot more.
Ah ha, beat me to it. Now the man in the middle is Bret I do believe, as he’s wearing those ridiculous bulky yellow wrist guards. Teen scrawny arse on (our) right is Mr Clinton Chin Quan I think, but the big ol’ ass on the left is a mystery…any one care to take a pot shot?
this thread needs to be kept alive.awesome. 
or a shit hot movie made…gregor jordan style…killer sound track.
lords of mob town…just a sugestion.
It was ascary ramp for sure, when you hit the coping it would tip back about a foot as you did your kickturn, it got remodelled and installed against the lamppost next to my driveway, eventually it fell to bits and the council took the pile of wood away before I could do smoething else with it.
Who came to blows???
Sac, for some reason I used to draw a fat faced pig with a big scoob a bit like ole Goodvibes on everything. Groucho marx was another fav to sketch.
Who had a scary trip across the bridge from Eltham station, I remember hearing stories of guys having to jump off into the creek as the train came back.
We used to head off from Monty station via a little st that had these rad wall ride driveways, then bomb down calrosie rd to the milkbar and then terrorise the dude that ran it, I always used to borrow a cherry ripe or 4 and buy a coke, he had a hot daughter I think.
I reckon some may say we had a mispent youth however I feel it was way more fun than playstation.
Skating provided so much fun, train trips to the other side of melb to skate a drain or sewrage bowl, running off the platform at spencer st and dissappearing into the rail loop tunnels, being chased by the greek and italian workers. Fark it was Fun
I remember the same stories about that train bridge,
also remember going to a half pipe or more like a quarter pipe with a wooden run up in someones back yard in Rosanna, i think his name was barnsie, there was also a Barry who was a great skater but a real wanker,
and there was someone called mouse, small blond guy who was another good skater,
anyone know these guys?
OK, maybe some of you guys have seen some (all ) of these off my website, but that’s presuming you’ve actually seen it…so- here’s a few I like from the '77-'79 period when the Radlanders were hating and being hated for it…
I think this might be my only shot of Dean, Sac’s older brother. For a Radlander he was surprisingly normal and genuinely friendly. Perhaps that’s why he dropped out of the scene pretty early- wasn’t gnar enough.
Cool guy, definitely one of the first guys to nail airs “out the top”
Here’s Johnny , as they say in the horror flicks, probably circa ‘75 even -ie: pre shoes, and already kickin’ at Bloodbath - now THAT’S a name for a skate spot, even if it wasn’t all that terrifying. Always shortened to just “bath”…
Glen Gustke- rail grab frontside wheeler circa 1978- not something you see every day, or even back then.
Glen had the haircut from the guitarist from Stars, a pretty lousy mid 70’s Aussie pub rock band. These days you’d efinitely call that a mullet, but the term had not been invented yet. Hey, my long hair was funny too, but you guys will have to write in and poke fun at me if you want equal time…
Here’s Terry Probin on the horrible Edwards demo ramp- fairly ointless really, as it had like 6 feet of tranny and almost as much vert- I don’t think anyone got to the top, did they? Definitely pointless then, and besides which, Edwards skate equipment was only marginally better than Taiwanese rubbish- I don’t think these guys used anything made by Edwards except the mis-shapen Flyaway copy helmets and maybe stickers on the bottom of the board. Sorry for the slagging, Terry was a top bloke and a phenomenal skater who made it through several eras of skating, always at the top. (More than can be said for me) RIP.
One of my favourite local skate photos, although I don’t know if it was taken by Viv Baddeley or Neil Durren. Andrew Tennant probably didn’t have any more chance of landing this than Jay Adams ever did, but who cares? In 1977, flailing bail shots in Skateboarder mag were par for the course, which is why it was sometimes difficult to tell the legit from absolute heinous bullshit.
Andrew Tennant was a crazy mofo, generally a mellowed out kiff man, but every now and again, he’d get really riled up about something or other- a little “unpredictable”…sure could blast a frontside air though- about as close to George Orton as we had here in Melbourne (for anyone old enough to know who I’m talking about)
John McGrath at Dolphin pool - now unles I’m wrong, I think the fella cartooned on the wall is one of Fletch’s Marx guys, giving all skaters their height rating- the lines were labelled “average”, “good”, awesome" or something. Basically anyone who got to the level of the twin ladder plug marks (about 5 1/2 feet up) was pretty damn good, cause this pool had all of 18 inches of tranny (again, for anyone old enough to make the mental leap back to Imperial measurement)
Other than the vague timeframe, there’s nothing that really ties all these pics together, but no doubt they were all fun sessions, with the fellas yelling and pushin each other to get edgier /higher/ slashier. It does sound pretty much like now, but back then, it’s a fair enough bet that during a heated session, no one had ever got that rad previously.
Airs were new, rock n rolls were new, slides were new, handplants probably just been invented but not in the mags yet- you get the picture. If I ever thought anything about skating back then, it was that - hey, no-ones EVER done this before, at least not anywhere round here…
Heres a cple from the early Scout Hall GFI Radlad Demos
This is a very early one as I’m not wearing a helmet so i would have been 14, so probably early 77.
Notice the watch on my left wrist, havent worn a watch since lol
About the same time i was fooling around KneeBoarding and strapping my feet to the board to do no hand airs.
Back then they all thought I was crazy (whats changed)
Me in 1977 @ Muzzas Wall the Fish Pond & Glen Gustke on the GFI Ramp I think.
A cpl of the early ones from one of the Demos @ the Scout Hall, note the Catamaran lol
Check out the old bomb in the background, for $1 you got to hit it with a sledge hammer 6 times i think
until by the end of the day we all just beat the shit out of it Ahh the good old days, I loved the 70’s.
Jinx, you have agood memory that ramp was in Strathallen rd macloed and was in fact barnsey, long ramp roll into a 6ft 1/4, many fun sessions had there, don’t remember barry, might have gone by another name.
Mouse was a rad little bugger from Eaglemont, his family where all hanglinding champions.
With regard to Muzz’a, there is a great shot of raggsy doing a massive bail air over the rock. pretty sure it’s on Noel’s site.