HISTORY

Nathan Purcell Shark island local ’90 photo Chris Stroh 

Without characters like Nugget the sport would be so boring.

From the pages of Riptide, Doug Robson at Southies, Nugget at Suckrock and Macca mid flight, Lurline Bay death jump. 1990 Young Aussie Bodyboarders were just beginning to make their mark on the sport photos Stroh

When Eppo unleashed a bunch of new moves in the early 90′s others also began experimenting. Nathan “Nugget”Purcell came up with The Gorf which is frog spelt backward. It was a kind of forward roll move that Nugget mastered and pulled out at Suckrock and Shark Island where this shot of Nugget performing it was taken around ’94 and appeared in Bodyboarder Mag.

Nathan “Nugget” Purcell was best known for his ripping out at Shark Island, inventing the Gorf move and along with Mark Fordham creating the Shark Island Challenge. During the 90′s Nugget like the rest of the top echelon of bodyboarders around the world he made the winter pilgrimage to Hawaii’s Northshore. Nugget around this time put in some solid free surfing performances out Pipe and Backdoor. This cutty carve was typical of the moves that impressed the locals. Photo Stroh mid 90′s.

Nathan Purcell appeared on the Bodyboard scene in Australia in the early 90′s when he started ripping at Shark Island. He soon gained a reputation as a no holds barred charger as well as a real funny bastard.As part of the Skid Kids, Nugget and his mates ran amok and broke away from the sports clean cut image. It caused a riff in the bodyboard ranks but Nuggets riding ability soon over shadowed all the negativity on land. It was along with his mate Mark Fordham that the pair got up and running The Shark Island Challenge which is still one of the sports favourite events today. Nugget these days lives in West Oz and still getting up to mischief.  Below  Nugget at the Cronulla Pinny Parlour late 80′s  pic Stroh

Young skinny Nugget, Dave Ballard and Dougy Robson posing in there Matt and Co boardies at Voodoo. The new brand was backed by King Gee and was looking at throwing some much needed dollars into the sport when the company was sold and the brand disappeared in no time at all. pic Stroh