CANCER, STREETBOARDING & MY ROAD TO NORMALITY.
WHERE YOU FROM? WHAT YOU ON? WHAT'S YOUR STORY?
#1
NILUFAR ZAMAN.
WORDS BY JAY NOWMAN.
Nils is one of the most determined people I have ever come across.
I first met Nils back sometime in the mid 90’s.
We both were excited teenagers roaming the London streets united in our love for this new craze that was sweeping the UK.
Snakeboarding was bubbling across the heartlands of Europe. London was a vastly different city than it is today.
A smouldering wasteland recovering from the excesses and neglect of the 80’s. The air thick with the sounds of the underground. Jungle, House and UK garage wafted across the city.
"BACK IN THE 90'S, AS GIRLS AT A SKATEPARK, IT WAS ME AND MY FRIEND LOGGER AGAINST THE WORLD"
“Competing in the Streetboard World Championships after going through so much with the cancer was an achievement”
NILS ZAMAN
“But more than that it was about getting back to normality and doing things that sastify me and I can say I achieved that today” Nilufar Zaman
Meanwhile the pubs and clubs were filled with crunching guitars, sloshing pints and a raw energy that even though subsided, if I stop and listen closely in a quiet corner of the metropolis today you’ll see the corner of my mouth briefly flick upwards. The echoes are still there, buried under gentrified high streets full of Gails, Joe the juice and brexit lies.
The only person I knew more excited than us was the man who introduced us. The godfather of UK Snakeboarding. Mark Campbell. One of the first outside of South Africa to sell Snakeboards worldwide.
Back in the 1990’s skateparks and street skating were a far cry from what they are now.
This was the height of follow the herd skateboarders’ hatred for anything that dare roll different than them. Especially rollerbladers.
With this in mind, I remember being called “scum of the earth” by not a skateboarder but a rollerblader on London’s Southbank circa 1995.
However a rare site Snakeboarders were at skateparks. Seeing a girl on any type of board/boots was even rarer.
When Nil’s, months after the Streetboard World Championships 2024, told me her story that she had competed only months after having had reconstructive surgery following her battle with breast cancer I was taken aback. Her determination to bring a normality back into her life through Streetboarding was a story that I am sure will touch and inspire many.
Make sure you watch the video above. To hear Nilafur tell her story in her own words.
Skateparks are now much more welcoming accepting places than they were in the 1990’s.
And I do believe a lot of this has been due to projects like Snake Like a Girl within Streetboarding and many like it in the wider action sports world.
Progress I do believe has been made. But there is still a long way to go.
And any progress is fragile. For the haters, narrow minded, and judgmental now mostly hide behind keyboards. Banging qwerty.
Each keystroke has the power to not just influence a small circle of IRL friends. It can travel the world. Influence millions. And have real world consequences.
Nil’s story is but one in a million. But her story within Streetboarding is a million to one.
We salute you Nilafur.
It was during hanging out together throughout this last winter in London.
Reminiscing on the “maybe not so good” old days.
After all these years realising we have a shared heritage as second generation children of immigrant(s) (for me my mum's side are British, well Cornish) and the challenges they faced.
And the challenges that us, the first generations born on British soil, faced talking about our heritage, just wanting to fit in.
Maybe it was the realisation that we wouldn't that drove us to pick the true odd one out of even the alternative sports world.
That the determination that Nil’s has shown in her, still ongoing, battle to return to normality isn’t something that should surprise me.
It was there plain as day when we first met.