With freestyle skateboarding growing worldwide, the UK Freestyle Skateboard Association came into being in January 2020 in an attempt to ensure that freestyle skateboarding is well-represented and organised within the United Kingdom.
Our primary aim is to organise and execute a yearly UK Freestyle Skateboarding Championship and further competitions in accordance to both our own guidelines and the guidelines laid out by the WFSA (World Freestyle Skateboarding Association).
Our secondary aims are:
- To facilitate the growth and promotion of freestyle within the UK
- To support UK freestylers at a professional level
- To ensure the UK is represented in the Global Freestyle Skateboard Rankings as defined by the WFSA
- To work towards defined standards of judging of competitive runs and to establish a pool of trained and qualified judges for freestyle skateboarding
- Raise and allocate funds as necessary to facilitate the previous aims
The UKFSA Management Committee
Following the first AGM of the UKFSA on the 26th of April, 2020, the current UKFSA Management Committee is as follows:
Tony Gale
Chair
Tony won the first of the “new era” (read: post-Millennium) British freestyle contests in 2003 and, barring a short hiatus for study, has been involved with freestyle skateboarding on a professional level ever since. He currently rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Seismic, Jimmy’z, Four.D grip, Bulletproof Laces, and runs the UK freestyle store Offset Skate Supply.
Aaron Watts
Secretary
While Aaron has been skateboarding for a long time, he’s a relative newcomer to freestyle – transitioning to the short boards only two years ago – but has been a very influential part of the scene in that time. He is currently the Deputy Manager for Kimber Skatepark and BMX Track in West London.
Alex Foster
Treasurer
Alex is one of the most dedicated people in the global freestyle scene. Through his website and Youtube channel LateTricks, Alex has not only collected the largest repository of freestyle contest results in the world, but he’s documented every contest run at almost every major world event in the last five years.
Reece Archibald
Officer
Reece is Scotland’s first professional freestyle skateboarder since Graham MacEachran, and has become well known on the contest circuit not just as a phenomenally creative skater, but also as one of the happiest and most friendly people to ever put shoe to griptape. He currently rides for Never Enough Skateboards, M14 Streetwear, and Trifle Crew.
Michael Erskine
Social Media Manager
Michael doesn’t get as much time to skate these days as he’d like but he’s still one of the most crucial parts of the UK freestyle scene. Between his day job (which is something technical involving lasers which no one else in the UKFSA understands) and his constant tinkering with new and crazy projects at the Nottingham Hackspace, he single-handedly manages to produce enough skid plates to keep the entire UK pogoing – which is no easy task!
Denham Hill
Denham is possibly one of the busiest men in freestyle. Alongside touring the globe to attend as many professional competitions as he could, he also managed to work with Sk8 Safe to design and deliver the UK’s first fully accredited skateboarding coaching qualifications and then moved on to become the manager of LS-Ten, the indoor skatepark in Leeds, where he continues to run coaching sessions with troubled youth. He currently rides for Moonshine Skateboards, Paris Trucks and Seismic.
Matthew Smithies
Aside from being the undisputed king of the underflip, Matthew has been making freestyle-related appearances all over the place for about a decade. You might have spotted him on a Death Skateboards DVD a while back, for instance. Nowadays he spends most of his time working as a software developer and blogging about ways to enhance the experience of working remotely – something very helpful in this day and age!
Currently, the UKFSA is not open to general membership. Membership of the Committee shall be considered upon recommendation from existing members, and new members will be appointed upon a successful vote at a UKFSA meeting.
If you’d like to contact us for further information, please use the form found on this page.