10 x 12 inch print of John jumping the car on the street course at Generation97 at Wembley Arena in London in 1997.

The Generation97 contest has gone down in history as a bit of a watershed moment in UK Skateboarding History.

During the early and mid nineties the American pros had turned up to a warehouse in Northampton for a large professional contest before heading off to Germany for the higher budget Munster Monster Mastership. The ‘Monster’ part of that title refers to the German magazine of the time Monster Skateboard Magazine. I’ve no idea why it was called that. Answers on a postcard. Anyway, I digress…

Year after year the whole west coast US scene would decamp to Europe for the summer. It was a different age, air travel was reasonably cheap and european rules regarding erm… certain substances was a whole lot more relaxed than even California at the time. So if you’re a pro skater in the mid nineties you’d probably believe you’d gone to heaven turning up in liberal Amsterdam from relatively uptight San Francisco. Yes, difficult to believe, but there it is. Anyway, I digress again…

This particular year some somebody in Britain had the idea of taking skateboarding out the legendary Radlands Indoor Skatepark in Northampton and putting it into a soulless stadium/arena in North London.

I’m not sure who’s idea it was or who funded G97 as it became known but as it didn’t happen again I’m quite sure they learnt their lesson about skateboarding and scuttled back under their profit margin.

However it did create a few incredible memories, including this moment which I happened to catch. 

John Cardiel had come along way from Sacromento to jump the car the long way in Wembley Arena.