IAN THACKER, 45

Account manager for decorating sundries firm, from Worcestershire

The biggest sports have their own cultures. Football is a 90-minute game, but it’s a five- or six-hour experience travelling with mates. The core is the activity, and you’ve got a mass of culture.

It’s the same with skating. Having skated when I was younger, I’ve started skating every Thursday again, and it’s more about going to hang out with my mates. I wear a suit to work, but outside of that I wear exactly the same clothes that I did in the mid-80s. Baggy shorts, skate-related T-shirts, a hoodie and a pair of DCs, Vans, Etnies/Emericas. The music has always been the same: thrash, hip-hop, anything fast, anything aggressive, because skating, as a sport, is fast and aggressive.

But skaters as people are just stoked by other people skating and enjoying it. I felt self-conscious when, in 2018, I went back to the skate park after many years away, but I loved it. Lots of mates have started taking it up again. You get driven by other people. If you land a trick, they’re there to cheer, and if you don’t, they’re there to pick you up.

The sport is seen in a different light now. In the 80s, people just saw troublesome youths, but now it’s mainstream. Kids these days have got purpose-built concrete parks that are easily accessible. When I was a kid, we had to salvage anything we could – me and three mates got arrested for nicking plywood to build a ramp.

My skating has gone back to basics. It’s just dropping in, fakie (riding backwards) to rock (when you turn on the lip of the ramp), rock to fakie. My body’s forgotten how to skate, and my mind’s saying “You’re too old for this”. But you get out there, and if you fall, you get up and start again.

My missus thinks it’s cool – but that I’m a bit old for it. To me it’s a case of once a skater, always a skater – I’ve got more than 60 boards.

Skating has given me so much. I can’t sum it up. It’s like asking a war veteran who’s done 60 tours to tell you about war in 20 minutes.

‘Once a skater, always a skater – I’ve got more than 60 boards,’ says Ian Thacker