Robert Carter has been managing the Stafford Skate rink for almost 40 years but said he was worried one day the rink "might just disappear". “Over the years everything just changed ... people used to come to a place like this to meet their friends, or meet new friends,” he said. Stafford Skate Centre Credit:Daniel van Driel The former competitive skater said late night and weekend shopping trade had affected the skate-rink industry. “In this industry, you can only normally make your money on school holidays and weekends so you’ve got to be big enough that you can get reasonable numbers to carry you through the hard times,” he said.

“We have high rents, high overheads, a lot of people say to us you’re quite busy – well if we’re not busy, we’re not here, we’re gone.” The 66-year-old still runs learn to skate classes at the rink and said it was his passion for the sport that kept him going. “I really hope it never disappears,” he said. The Stafford Skate Centre opened in 1972. Mr Carter worked as a coach at the rink from 1973 and took over the centre in 1981. He originally worked at the Redcliffe Rollerdome. The Redcliffe Rollerdome opened in 1928 and closed in 1985 to make way for an expansion to Anzac Park.

Brisbane resident Greg Kemp, 63, used to walk past the Redcliffe Rollerdrome near the Redcliffe Jetty on his way to school in 1968. “I skated there for a long, long time. It was a great place to meet people,” he said. “A lot of my friends met their girlfriends there and a few married those girls.” Mr Kemp said the rink was like a tourist destination. “We could hop on the floor and start skating and it would be people two deep looking in through the wire mesh watching everybody,” he said.

“What made Redcliffe so popular was you could hop out of the skate rink, walk 20 metres and have a swim or walk on the jetty or go across to the Redcliffe RSL with your parents and have a soft drink.” Mr Kemp said there were no "ratbags" at the rink and it was "good, clean fun" that lost its popularity. “In my early years [of skating] I was there whenever it was open,” he said. “Kids these days spend a hell of a lot of time on social media and need something to get them out and doing something.” The former Red Hill Skate Arena is now mostly covered in graffiti. Credit:Stephen Hadley

Mr Carter said the surviving skate rinks usually hosted sporting clubs during the week and then the general public on the weekends. Brisbane City Rollers member Kelly Keys said one of the biggest issues her roller derby team faced was finding a training venue, with the team often left training in the "chook shed" at Ipswich Showgrounds. Kelly Keys plays roller derby for the Brisbane City Rollers “It’s one of the big issues with roller derby and all roller sports really is to find training venues,” she said. “We currently train between the Ipswich Showground and the Mansfield Eagles Sports Complex.

“The Ipswich Showgrounds is also known officially as the poultry shed, it’s a big tin shed, we call it the ‘chook shed’ and Mansfield is a basketball stadium floor.” Ms Keys said there was "absolutely" a shortage of rinks in Brisbane despite the growing popularity of roller sports. “I suppose [rinks] takes up a lot of space so ... in the last 20 years I’ve lived here Brisbane has turned from an overgrown country town to what is a real proper city now,” she said. “That’s also probably why a lot of rinks that have survived are much further out.” The former Red Hill skate rink was destroyed by fire in 2002 and has been sitting abandoned until 2018 when development approval was given for it to restored and turned into a cinema.