Tony Hawk almost did not make it to Dublin. The former pro skater's son was injured in a skateboarding accident just before The Birdman was due to set out for our shores.

Fortunately his son is back on his feet and that meant his father was able to chat to Off The Ball about all manner of things from his famed endorsement of the Tony Hawk video game franchise to his career as a pro skater and beyond.

Hawk admitted to Ger that trying to make a living as a pro skater around the time he first started was tough going.

"The first downturn in skating when I was in Junior High School but I didn't think of it as a blow to my career as I didn't have a career yet. The only time I really felt it was when I had just started a family and I had a mortgage to pay. All of a sudden, every month my paycheck was getting cut in half so that became a real challenge. But I loved it too much to give it up," he said.

And when opportunities to endorse a brand of video games came along, he made sure he was in control of his image, learning from past mistakes.

"I was always skating and when I saw skating coming back into popularity, I had the experience of learning from my mistakes in terms of promoting and marketing. In the 80s, there was stuff I was associated with that was super cheesy,"said Hawk.

"It was because I'd signed my rights away and so when I was doing licencing deals, I was literally handing people my name.  I'm thankful that I went through it at that time so that when it came back around, I had learned from my mistakes.   

He also discussed his famous 900 move and how he finally managed to pull it off after many failed attempts.