Factory Media writes: Surf Europe started before the Millennium when trousers were baggy, when having followers meant you were either the Messiah or paranoid and when videos were plastic boxes you queued up to rent in Blockbuster from a man in a short sleeve shirt and tie.
The magazine thought to champion the cause of the Atlantic's eastern fringe surf rider, the European. Of he or she who surfed under the shadow of medieval fortifications, who drove narrow streets and had trouble parking. America and Australia were great, of course, but we were Europe. We drove compact cars. We had confusing currencies, ancient tongues and arcane grudges. Europe!
Our 100 back issues serve not to document a period of history. We travelled the globe, we drank contest beers and blagged free lunches whenever we could and tried to annoy the powers that be enough to get a giggle out of our readers but not quite enough to get sent home. We surfed with our heroes, lauded them in person and in prose, then tried to pull their pants down.
And now, Issue 100, The Hundred Greatest Surfers of all Time. Great meaning very big, great meaning very good. There are 7 women in our list of 100. 1 father son combo. 2 twins, 2 brothers, 2 Brazilians. 1 Bahai convertee, 1 former Hare Krishna, 1 transexual, 2 surfers who lost eyes to leash accidents.
It was meant as an entertaining, engaging, maybe even informative read between surfs. Which is something we’ve been thanked for/asked for a closer approximation of to varying degrees over the past 100 issues.
Here’s to a few more.
