1993, a VHS, a 16‑year‑old Brit: how Tom Penny flipped the style of every American pro in six months?

A hangar in Northampton, neon lights hanging from the ceiling, a fish‑eye camera (the ultra wide‑angle lens that rounds everything). A kid in a cap laughs at the lens, not quite sure why he's being filmed. The subtitle sets the scene in two lines: born April 13, 1977, in Dorset, England. His name is Tom Penny. He's sixteen.

It's 1993, in issue 2 of 411 Video Magazine, the skate magazine that came out on VHS instead of paper. Penny gets his “Wheels of Fortune,” the segment that spotlights the hopefuls. A few minutes of footage, no more.

A year later, American pros try to move like him. Transworld will write it in black and white in 2012: six months after his arrival in the United States, in 1994, “all the pros on the planet wanted to skate like him.”

Six months. For a kid who learned in the rain, with no shop or magazines. How is that even possible? Hang tight, because the answer isn’t a trick.

Oxford, before the cassette: no shop, no magazines, four friends

First thing to straighten out: where he comes from. You'll read “Dorset,” “Abingdon,” or “Oxford” depending on the source. They all have a grain of truth. 411 makes him a Dorset native. The UK magazine Sidewalk says he grew up in Abingdon, a village in Oxfordshire. And he says he started in Oxford.

His version, given to Transworld in 2012, is worth the read: “When I started skating in Oxford, there weren’t many skaters. No magazines, no shop, no idea about the rest of the skate world.”

His influences back then? Not the pros. Four friends: Justin Parker, Erin Chalice, Pete Crucioli, and Thomas Kilpatrick.

Keep that in mind. Penny doesn’t copy any famous rider.

Puis le shop SS20 d’Oxford le repère, et Sean Goff, pro du coin et copropriétaire du magasin, le fait entrer dans l’équipe. Derrière, Jeremy Fox le prend chez Deathbox, la marque anglaise qui deviendra Flip. En 1993, Penny est déjà dans The Long Overdue, la toute première vidéo Flip, avec Geoff Rowley, Rune Glifberg, Andy Scott et Alex Moul.

À lire aussi : Flip, 1994 : comment Deathbox est devenu Flip ?

Northampton, 1993 : la cassette où il finit troisième

Radlands, c’est un hangar de Northampton ouvert en 1992 par la famille Ince, présenté comme le premier skatepark couvert de Grande-Bretagne. En 1993, il accueille une compétition où débarquent des pros américains. Le 411 envoie ses caméras.

Sur la bande, une ligne de texte s’affiche : « 3. Tom Penny ». Troisième, à seize ans, dans une compétition où des pros sont venus des États-Unis pour gagner. Le public est entassé sur les gradins, un photographe accroupi au pied de la barre.

Le même numéro liste ses sponsors : Flip, Independent (une marque de trucks, les essieux de la planche), Union, Droors et SS20. Et ses skateurs préférés : Mark Gonzales, Daewon Song, Eric Koston, Rune Glifberg, Guy Mariano, Jason Lee. Un gamin de seize ans avec cinq sponsors, qui cite son coéquipier danois au même rang que Gonz. Ça te pose le personnage, non ?

Here it is, the 1993 cassette. Watch how he drops after every trick. The upper body barely moves. Keep that in the back of your mind, we’ll get back to it.

Huntington Beach, 1994: seventeen and finally more rain

July 1994. Flip leaves England for California. Jeremy Fox, his partner Ian Deacon and Geoff Rowley head out first, followed by Penny and Glifberg. Heading to Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles, where the skate industry’s HQs and spots are.

Rowley recounted the departure: “I had just turned eighteen, Tom was seventeen, none of us had ever lived away from home.” They grew up dreaming of waking up every morning to skate without rain. “No one could hold us back.”

And it shows fast. Penny lands his first Transworld cover, a frontside bluntslide (the board sliding on its tail, rear wheels hanging over the lip) shot in Huntington Beach.

In 1995, 411 issue 11 dedicates a section to Flip. Penny has only a few shots. Including a switch frontside flip (a board rotation launched from the wrong foot) at Carlsbad Gap, a famous jump over the void. That same year Hi‑5 drops, the Etnies shoes brand video. People rewind.

À lire aussi : Ce que Geoff Rowley a appris à Huntington Beach en 1994

What the pros really copied

So, how does a seventeen‑year‑old Englishman tour all of California in six months? Not with a trick harder than the others. By 1994, American pros already know how to do pretty much everything. What they never saw was the way.

Andrew Reynolds saw Penny’s part in Hi‑5. He sums it up better than anyone: “Not many people have a kickflip, a frontside flip, a switch frontside flip and a switch flip that all look exactly the same.” Four different tricks, one signature. The others skate trick by trick. Penny skates in one block.

Second beat: he didn’t force anything. Skin Phillips, former editor‑in‑chief of Transworld: “He was laid back. I don’t think he ever realized the impact he had on skate.” Chad Muska, who skated with him back then, goes further: “It’s like he didn’t even know he was doing something special. Nothing was conscious.”

Third beat, the assurance. Phillips again: the Flip crew, when they arrived, “weren’t at all impressed by competitions or demos. It was just what they grew up on.” Makes sense. The Radlands kid had already rubbed elbows with the American pros at sixteen, and he finished third.

Six months after arriving in the US in ’94, all the pros on the planet wanted to skate like him. Transworld Skateboarding, 2012

So the answer is clear: Tom Penny didn’t conquer America with a trick. He conquered it with a way of moving. The 1993 tape had already put him in the spotlight. Huntington Beach put him front and center for the pros, every single day. And his style did the rest: moves that all look the same, laid out effortlessly, no calculation. A trick is learned. A vibe isn’t. So they spent years trying.

And after? The Radlands kid in the Hall of Fame

The rest, you know if you’ve been through the VHS in the early 2000s: eS Menikmati in 2000, then Flip Sorry in 2002, Really Sorry in 2003, Extremely Sorry in 2009. In December 2011, Transworld ranked him the 21st most influential skater of all time.

In 2023, he made it into the Skateboarding Hall of Fame. The induction speech, signed by Don Brown, calls him a “fresh face from Oxford” and highlights “his iconic win at Radlands.” Yeah, the kid who was third in ’93 eventually came out on top there.

And the last line will probably raise an eyebrow. Today, Tom Penny is living in France. He often skates in Spain.

For the rest of the legend, we’ve covered it all in our Tom Penny portrait.

What was your first time seeing Penny? The 411 tape, Menikmati, or just ten seconds on your phone? Drop it in the comments.