Alfie Morrey hasn’t been skateboarding long in the grand scheme of things, but his style is totally old school. He’s very much a disciple of the church of footplants, handplants and skating raw, untamed concrete. I met him skating at my local park on my lunch break and his enthusiasm for skateboarding reminds me why I still ride about on a plank with wheels. When I asked him to put together a Top 5, he was very eager to put together a list honouring the 5 professional skateboarders he is most stoked on. – Ade
5. Dead Dave
It’s been so hard to pick a top five, as I love skating as a whole and everyone in it, but at number five I think I’ll have to go for Dead Dave from the Baghead Crew and Heroin Skateboards. His part in Funeral is incredible to me, and I think I’ve watched it a good 100 times! He has such a unique bag of tricks, and the way his style is kind’ve loose and flowy is so good. It really inspires me to skate and I’ve been Influenced quite a bit from him.
4. Duane Peters
“The Master of Disasters": What more do I need to say? The biggest punk rocker and raddest dude on a deck has to be on my list. From his sick tats and funky hair, to watching him rip at old contests, and legendary photos. So dope.
3. Jake Snelling
For number 3 I’m going to hark back to another UK skater: Jake Snelling. Obviously his footage in Blokes was amazing. He has so much style and aggression in his skating. Everything is done with power and speed. I only recently realised he was on Morbid’s Ripride team for a bit, so I always watch his clips on the Ripride youtube and that always gets me ready to skate!
2. Jeff Grosso
I love Jeff so much. I used to watch his Santa Cruz “Streets On Fire” part on repeat: skating the vert to “Nervous Breakdown”, huge Lien to Tail’s in slo-mo. That part gets my psyched up! His Antihero Destination Unknown part is crazy. Also, his Love Letters series taught me so much good stuff about skateboarding.
1. Mark Gonzales
At number one it has to be The G-man: Mark Gonzales. I think every skater has been influenced by Mark in some way, but ever since I first got into skating and played the first EA Skate game, I always picked Mark as a character. I always looked up to him, from Video Days and old Blind clips of him skating Paris just the best style. My favourite photo of skateboarding is an old picture from the 1980’s of Gonz doing the most stylish boneless on a Vision deck, with the tail right up in the camera!
The Terrible Company 