10 years ago today, Yorkshire snowboarder, park shaper and film maker Damian Doyle released his first full length shred flick, Standing Sideways. It captured the vibrant  northern dryslope scene at the time – as well as some fledgling indoor sessions at the new Castleford XScape – where guys like Dom Harington, Stu Edwards, Charlie Clark, Colum Mytton, Wayne Taylor and a young kid called Jamie Nicholls were throwing down on a regular basis.

Now living in New Zealand, Damo has just produced this re-edited highlights edit. It’s an awesome trip down memory lane that just goes to prove how great our humble facilities can be at nurturing snowboard talent. It’s also a poignant reminder of what we seem to be losing with Sheffield’s tragic demise and less and less riders gather to shred on plastic these days.

Here’s Damo’s own intro:

I wanted to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first Standing Sideways film. The people involved are living all over the place now and it’d be near impossible to get them all together. I thought the next best thing would be to re-edit the film, make a short highlights edit with some unused shots and music, and rekindle the stoke for dry slope.

It’s been rad to go through all the footage, cut out the cringey stuff and make a new edit. The riding still stands up against today’s standard and it’ll be interesting to see what the current generation of indoor kids make of it.

 The film was made between 2002-2004, a time when the Sheffield and Halifax scenes were at their peak. Cas had only just been built so the freestyle community that we know now hadn’t really developed and Tamworth and MK were the only other indoor slopes. Most nights at the dryslopes were packed and the Snowflex surface (that replaced the dreaded diamond holed Dendex matting for jumps and rails) allowed you to try harder tricks without fear of hurting yourself so badly if you took a slam. Kicker riding was the main focus and Halifax had the best booter of all the dryslopes. With cheap (or blagged) lift passes, fast lap times and a kicker that didn’t change, trick progression happened fast. Rail riding meant setting up the Transco pipe, learning to ollie on from the side, and hoping your edges didn’t catch on the softer plastic.

The riding still stands up against today’s standard

We’re never going to see Sheffield Ski Village like it is in the vid, so it’s good to have documented a bit of UK snowboarding history. It was a progressive scene and welcoming place to hang out. Riding with your mates, pushing each other, building rails, doing stupid stuff and having a beer afterwards in the bar. On the more competition focused side of snowboarding, with all the hype and attention on snowsports at the Olympics, maybe people will see this and realise that funding, creating and investing in world class slopes/facilities, here in the UK, can get kids into it at a grassroots level and bring them up to be the next UK pros/medal hopes. Dom and Jamie in the vid are perfect examples, 10 years on they’ve just competed in the 2014 Olympics!

 The original film wasn’t made for a reason. I didn’t intend to make a full film, just a little scene vid, but it grew easily and was one of those right time, right place, right people things. I skated and filmed with my friends, then started snowboarding and became obsessed with it. I saw amazing riding everyday at the Ski Village so I started filming it. Charlie and a couple of others were really into a short edit I put together so that gave me a buzz to do more. The crew in the film formed naturally and started travelling to Halifax and Cas regularly, and Tamworth and MK when we could.

With cheap lift passes, fast lap times and a kicker that didn’t change, trick progression happened fast

I had all the sections edited together long before we thought about making it a proper vid. It was when I showed it to Andy and Stef at Slide that the idea of putting it out on DVD came up. They were stoked on it and sent VHS copies off to the brands they stocked in the shop, asking for sponsorship to cover costs and helped me raise enough money to put together and release the final DVD. I’m really grateful to the companies that backed the DVD and the people who helped get the film and Standing Sideways going. I couldn’t have asked for better help and guidance and I can’t thank them enough. So this re-edit is to give something back for them too. Just need to get everyone in the same place for another premiere now, cos that’d be a banger!