The Terrible Company’s Greatest Hits was so fun to make that I wanted to do another one. I did say that there were loads more people who I wanted to make a “best of” video for, so here we are. This is 10 more full parts featuring the best footage from some of our buddies who I’ve had the privilege of filming over the last 18 years.
The Caveats: A reminder
To keep this short and sweet (you can read The Greatest Hits accompanying guff for a more detailed explanation): Source footage for around half of the videos in my back catalog is lost to the sands of time due to shitty, cheap hardware, and my own stupidity. A lot of footage in this video has no audio because it was ripped from DVDs of finished videos, so I had to cut out the music from those clips.
I think, more so than even the first video, this video acts as a further record of some people who have been important to the Coventry skate scene. Some of these guys aren’t even Cov skaters and still managed to make an impact in our city.
This is by no means “The B Team” either, and this isn’t really “Greatest Hits Volume 2”. Each of these dudes has been incredibly influential to Coventry’s skate scene in their own right, and by making this video it’s own distinct thing I hoped to at least acknowledge that. I would even go as far to say that a lot of these guys are much more relevant to Coventry’s skateboarding history than some of those in Greatest Hits.
So, with that in mind, here’s a rundown of the 10 parts included in this video.
The parts
1. Tom Albrow
Tom was unfortunately the first part I cut when I tried to condense Greatest Hits down to a manageable length. He is undoubtedly a skateboarder who completely summed up this blog’s attitude – approaching skateboarding with a daft sense of humour, having fun with it, but also doing gnarly shit when you want to as well. When selecting his best tricks there was a wealth of incredible NBD’s and pure silliness which in reality was probably stupidly hard to pull off.
It’s a wild first part to open this video with, although I side stepped Tom’s usual ironically silly song choices (he previously skated to “Witch Doctor” by The Cartoons in a previous video) with something a bit more serious. Given that one of my earliest memories of this dude was blasting down the A46 in his mini listening to Deep Purple, I thought it was fitting.
2. Pro Marky
The goddamn Professional is in the house! Marky has only had 1 and a half parts in my videos, but over the years he has amassed a wealth of footage with me that proves why the name “Pro Marky” is the perfect nickname for him. Nobody does Backside Sweepers better than this man, and despite what Stan said in the credits of Greatest Hits: Pro Marky can Kickflip, and there’s video proof in this part.
3. Andy Scott
As has been said far too many times – No, not that Andy Scott. Way back when this blog was a Coventry scene website, Coventry’s Andy Scott was out there filming his own stuff and representing the skaters in the city that I was unable to cover. With so many rad people in the local area, and as social media and the scene grew, it was impossible for me to film stuff with everyone. This split inevitably grew into the multiple crews and Instagram accounts covering the city’s scene today, including Andy’s own wide reaching content on Ghost Town Social Club.
Even still, Andy managed to film two full parts and a bunch of other stuff with The Terrible Company during the blog’s first 10 years, including some incredible Coventry NBDs. His influence on the skate scene made him someone a lot of us looked up to and skating with him has always been a rad time.
4. Swampy
Henry Moore made me love Slash Grinds again (shoutout to Slasher Sam, who had an equal hand in this). I think until I met him I considered the Slash Grind a bit of a beginner move that little grom kids did. And then I saw Swampy do them, and then I saw him skate his backyard bowl, and then I saw him shred all transitions across Coventry, Bristol and beyond.
This incredible multi-talented coping killer from Wyken is one of the most underrated artists in the skateboarding world, a DIY skatepark genius who will fit a ramp into the tiniest of spaces, and a fantastic bluegrass musician. If you’re a transition skater from Coventry, Swampy is your favourite Cov skater, full stop.
5. Connor Hills
“Duffman, oh yeah!”. Duffman is a regular contributor to this blog, and has been a good homie for many years. I honestly wish I’d spent more time filming Connor, because whenever he turns up to a park he just bangs out the maddest stuff. He’s always been like this, and as he gets older the tricks he pulls out get wilder. A lot of the stuff you’ll see in this part is from the early 2010’s, before he moved out of Coventry, but even still you see flashes of how absolutely rad he has become.
6. Tony Lui
When I was younger I got wound up by Tony Lui pretty easily: we disagreed on all manner of shit including filming, editing and music choices, but looking back on it he taught me to double down on not taking shit seriously. Why bother? It’s just skateboarding.
For this part I basically collaborated fully with T to build a part he was fully stoked on. He has so much footage I think is super rad, but in his own words he wanted to keep this part “short and sweet”, so we focused on only the very, very best stuff. There’s also a guest trick in here from regular blog contributor Ryan Bradley – RB and Tony were good homies and they go way back. Tony also contributed some extra clips of his own, so you’re getting some bonus rare cuts in this part!
Tony is in that school of skateboarder who is incredibly flowy, making awesome shapes on a board, and pulling plenty of surprises. He can skate anything you put in front of him, and he’s got this super inventive approach where he’ll bust out something that’ll blow your mind.
7. Kyle Smith
KB is a phenomenally good street skater. Putting this part together I actually think I took how good he was for granted. I always talk about Cov skaters being underrated or not getting their due – KB is a perfect example. Dude can pull off any ledge combo with incredible style, hit a handrail, and holds his own (and then some) on transition. I went on two road trips with him, and seriously, he just keeps going, and will put down amazing tricks forever. Again, like Marky, he’s only had 1 and a half full parts in my videos, which is something I regret – I wish I’d spent more time filming with Kyle because getting good stuff on film with him is easy.
8. Joe Fleming
Fleming’s part in this is another one from the Greatest Hits cutting room floor. Hailing from Nuneaton (and having lived in Australia for a large chunk of his life), Joe cropped up on my radar in around 2017. I basically spent the next 2 years amassing a huge amount of transition footage of this dude completely destroying all of our local parks (and even some further afield). In this part there are many instances of onlookers losing their minds at Joe’s insane ramp skills.
9. Josh Walters
Pour one out for a promising young Heathen team member whose skateboarding career was cut short by a horrendous injury. Josh Walters was a kid from Leicestershire who we kind of adopted as part of the Cov scene after meeting him at the Boardroom, and from his close connection to Daryl Nobbs through their shared sponsor – Heathen Skateboards.
Two full parts, and a bunch of other oddities and rarities from other videos, condensed into this awesome best bits part, showing just how bloody good Josh was. He had a daft sense of humour and I got on with him like a house on fire – and after leaving the world of skateboarding he took to the fashion industry, creating 3man Media (@3man_media • Instagram photos and videos). Shoutout to blog buddy Mike Simons who pops up for some doubles action in this part too!
10. Tez Aldersley
The brothers Aldersley, Matt and Tez, were these extremely talented local heroes down at the Memorial Park Skatepark in Coventry. They were both sponsored by local shop Ride, and both on flow for Adio, and when I first met them they were both in line for board sponsorships. They were close friends with my partner-in-crime Chris Mander, so inevitably I would film some stuff with them.
Tez clocked in the most footage out of the two, scoring two long full parts, and a ton of additional footage throughout this blog’s first 10 years. A lot of wild stuff was captured through my lense filming with Tez – very technical, daft (in a completely serious way) tricks done at spots nobody knows about in Coventry. He’s always been this wiry, wide grinned, manic all terrain wizard who just pops his board and makes magic shit happen.
What we have here is a banger part of Tez’s best bits from his years as a tiny wonder kid up until his early 20’s where he paved the way for the likes of Lucas Healey. His technical dexterity on a skateboard is exactly what I see evolved in modern day Cov Street skaters like Lucas and Lewis Guest, and for that reason I feel like his part had to close this video. Fun fact: Tez was meant to have the last part in Cannonball Holocaust, but Lucas (who was originally due to have the FIRST part) swept in with some incredible tricks and one upped him to grab the ender. As I said, Tez paved the way for those who came after.
Conclusion
To re-iterate: filming every single one of these skateboarders has been one of the greatest achievements of my life. The thought that any one of them would trust me to film their skills on a skateboard and showcase it this way is an honour.
I want to keep filming skateboarding as long as I am able, and I wanted to approach this footage of all of these skateboarders with the knowledge and experience I have as a filmmaker and graphic designer, now in 2021, to produce the sections they all deserve.
Next up: There’s a selection of people who I wish I had been able to film more of. There’s specifically a group of people who I had on a wishlist to film full parts with who I never did – or if I did it was a one off where I didn’t really film them as much as I’d liked. Get ready for the final installment in the Archive Trilogy: a Bootleg Terrible Company video with parts that could have been…
The Terrible Company 