Local skaters, Ben Rowles and Lloyd McGleggon-Watson produced outstanding performances at the Red Bull Manny Mania qualifier at The Pump Cage two weeks ago, which won them places in the UK final in London on 26th June.

Despite the ambivalent weather predictions leading up to the competition date, Manchester enjoyed one of the finest days this year. Over 100 people crammed into the Mancunian Way skatepark to watch around 25 contestants, including several local skaters, compete in the most technically demanding international skateboarding competition in the world.

For those unfamiliar with Red Bull Manny Mania, watch this short video. It explains everything!

The winners of the Manchester qualifying round for Red Bull Manny Mania are:

Jack Edwards,
Joe Moore,
Ben Rowles and
Lloyd McGleggon-Watson.

All four are through to the UK Red Bull Manny Mania final in London next weekend. May the best man win!

Projekts MCR would like to thank the Red Bull team for their continuous hard work, encouragement and support throughout the day. Their friendliness towards everyone who visited the skatepark and to the Projekts MCR team made an immeasurable impact to the event atmosphere. We look forward to working with Red Bull in the future.

Saturday 22nd May was undoubtedly the hottest day this year, which made it the perfect day for the Projekts MCR Youth Committee trip to Clitheroe’s concrete skatepark. At 10:30am that morning, 15 skaters piled into the Youth Contact Team’s minibus for a two hour trek to one of the UK’s most beautifully situated skateparks. It sits on the edge of a large park, surrounded by trees, a bowling green and, unusually, a large hill with a castle on top.

None of the scenery appeared to be of any interest to the skaters, of course. That’s because the skatepark itself has enough interesting features to keep them occupied all day- banks, ledges, gaps, driveways, a couple of mini-ramps, a bowl and some other quirky little bits and bobs to mess around on. So everyone skated for hours on end. A lot of tricks were performed (even I landed something!). People had fun. Someone broke their arm. We all went home.

Apart from the unfortunate injury, the only downside to the trip was not being able to open any of the windows on the minibus on the way home. They were literally screwed shut! Apparently this was an attempt to prevent kids from throwing their refuse at other road users. It worked effectively, but the smell was horrendous.