Show No Fear: A Bouncer's Diary (7 page)

St Patrick’s day, all was going well until… we spot someone in the bar who had decided to take his boots and socks off and place them on the bar, he was about six feet tall with long frizzy red hair and of a robust type of build. He was with about seven or eight of his pals and they were all knocking back copious amounts of the black stuff and getting very loud and boisterous. He was asked to put his boots back on but refused at first; here we go again I thought. I told him to stop acting like a [gob shite]. I figured he might understand if I asked him using some of his own terminology, and after that he reluctantly did as I asked. We are all back at the front door when eight or nine other Irish fellas try to enter the club. They have all had way too much to drink and so we knock them back, they are not too pleased with being refused entry and decided to give us a lot of verbal and start to crowd the door. Meanwhile the fella who had his boots off earlier is trying tell us that the guys outside are his mates and they will behave themselves, and he stars to tell them to come in. Here we go nine outside eight inside and we are in the middle outnumbered as usual. You get this lot together and there will be murders. So I push him back into the bar and put my foot against the inner door to prevent him and his mates getting at us from behind. Just as I am doing that one of them jumps up and throws a punch over his mates shoulder, which smacks John right in the eye. As soon as the blow lands, the three of us burst forwards out of the doorway to engage them in a mass brawl, at that moment a Police van screeches to a halt right outside the club, luckily for them, as we were up for that one and I guarantee you that a few of them would have never forgotten that particular St Patrick’s day. One of the coppers comes over and
takes a look at John’s eye which is rapidly turning into a nice little shiner, he asks if he wants to press charges to which John replied no but I want to take him around the corner for a straightener. The chap who had thrown the punch over hears the remark and a scuffle ensues between John, this bloke and two coppers, two other paddies’ started to give the old bill some verbal and refused to move and so with a bit of a struggle they were arrested. We eventually manage to get rid of them, and the ones who were inside as well. About twenty minutes later three of them come back and apologise for their friend’s behaviour because apparently it had nothing to do with them. The older guy who is about fifty odd says to me that he is a gentleman and doesn’t want any trouble and promises to behave, “bollocks you’ve got no chance” was my reply. He went mental, and started shouting and screaming, his actual words were “I’m going to rip your fecking head off”. Stupid old git, he wouldn’t have been able to punch a dent in a pound of butter. His two companions try to restrain him but he was having none of it, my patience now exhausted I decide to give him an opportunity to carry out his threat. I step out of the door and challenge all three to have a go; they declined my offer and beat a hasty retreat back to the emerald isle. To be sure, to be sure. We stay for a while after closing up and have our usual couple of drinks with Jo, but on this particular occasion we are joined by one of the new barmaids. She’s a big old sort about five feet two and she’s got to be weighing in at around the sixteen stone mark, she therefore acquired the unflattering title of “the big un”, she’s a bit fruity as well (a dangerous combination). She was wearing an unflattering tight fitting short skirt and a blouse that must have been a couple of sizes to small, the buttons on it were under an enormous amount of strain trying desperately to contain her huge knockers and rolls of fat. Pete said that she had touched him up earlier on that night (fuck me she must be desperate). She sat down and joined in the conversation and announces that she has been taking classes in the art of massage, I just happen to mention to her that John had been complaining of a bad back earlier in the evening (which he hadn’t been). She then decided to give a practical demonstration. John’s shirt disappeared in a flash, suddenly finding himself half-naked and at the mercy of a sex starved Sumo in knickers. He was put into a half nelson and placed face down over a table where she now went to work on him, her chubby digits prodding and poking him all over. She looked over at me and says-
“Your next big boy”
I decided that a tactical withdrawal might be a good idea. I was out that door like a fucking rocket. John decided to part company with us and set up his own business, best of luck to him. I’m going to miss working with him. He backed us up without fail every time when things kicked off; he would get right in the thick of things trading blows with the best of them. The three of us made a pretty good team. He was a bit of a tear-away though.
We now have a replacement for him, he was about twenty a bit too young for this game really, but we will try and look after him, mind you he didn’t look as if he needed looking after he was built like a brick shit house. He had a shaven head with tattoos all over the place. After a few weeks we all got on really well, he was a likeable guy but had a violent temper. Which I think unfortunately is going to get him into serious trouble one day.
His name was Simon I tried to show him the finer points of door etiquette, diplomatic ways in which you could escort a difficult punter off the premises without too much effort. His way being to engage the transgressor in a very short verbal exchange combined with a head butt between the eyes. What we have here is a failure to communicate.
The office rang me and asked if Pete and I would look after a club down in Greenford, We got to the office and had a quick chat with John, he asked one of the supervisors to run us down there. Half way through the journey the supervisor says he is glad he hadn’t been asked to look after this place tonight he thought it was a bit dodgy. Why? Where are you going? I say.
“I’m going to look after a pub in the East End later on tonight”.
Apparently it was a popular underworld haunt. He doesn’t fancy a night in Greenford but has no problem working in the East End for some well-known gangsters. Does he know something we don’t? I asked him what the S P down here, he says that the door men who used to work there were not best pleased in losing their venue and that there was talk of reprisals against anyone who took over the door, guess what, this was the first night.
Fuck them; if they try anything they’ll come unstuck. We’re not stupid we have back up that we can call upon if necessary.
We eventually arrive at the place; the supervisor didn’t hang about, waving to us as he shot out of the car park with wheels spinning and disappears in a cloud of dust.
It was a big venue with a largely Irish clientele. Two huge front doors led you into a porch area, which is where we positioned ourselves for the evening.
We had a cc tv monitor just inside the door; it had a quartered split screen giving us an all-around view of the place. Inside was a long straight bar with six or seven very busy staff rushing about behind it. A large stage to the rear and in front of that about a hundred chairs had been set out. As the live band was setting up the manager came out to give us the once over. I asked one of the barmen what the previous door staff were like, he said that they were three very arrogant young Asian lads one in particular would occasionally demonstrate his dexterity with a butterfly knife spinning it around in his hand in full view of the punters. The barman was asked by the manager to stay with us and point out any undesirables, he also had to stay there and collect the £5 entrance fee.
The place was starting to fill quite rapidly, they all seemed in good spirits, and everyone seemed to be acting perfectly normal. As the band starts to play their first number some fella gets up onto the stage and starts crawling about, we both go in and to the cheers of the crowd pick the guy up by his arms and deposit him back into his seat.
It was all very light hearted and the band started to play on, two minutes later he’s up again, this time trying to give his own rendition of (my way). He’s got to go this time,
we drag him off the stage to loud applause and dump him outside on the pavement.
He starts to argue a bit and the manager comes over to intervene, he says to the guy he can come back in if he agrees to behave himself. I suggested that he let us deal with him; clearly he has had way too much to drink and is only going to get worse. But the manager says he will give him one last chance to behave and so he goes back in and almost immediately is up on the stage giving an Elvis impression. It was quite amusing but he is going out for good this time. We drag him off the stage and throw him outside. I stay just inside the door and Pete is on the outside, I ask Pete to keep an eye on him as he walks up the road.
“What’s that bloke doing now mate”?
“He’s getting into a rubbish skip”
“You what”?
“What’s he doing now”?
“He’s getting out of the skip and he’s got a big lump of wood”
“What’s he doing now”?
“He’s swinging it around his head and he’s coming back towards the pub”.
I didn’t see the barman leg it I just felt the wind as he went past disappearing into the back of the beer garden some fifty yards away.
As he gets closer to the venue I go out to face him while Pete goes to one side, he looks
at me and then at Pete, we are both either side of him, we get a closer look at the lump of wood he had taken out of the skip, it was a four foot piece of three by two with two or three large crooked nails sticking out of one end.
Nasty little bastard I thought, he had it in a two-handed baseball bat type grip. Before he had time to think about who he was going to whack first, I move forward which distracted him for a second Pete then quickly moved in from the side and snatched the weapon out of his hands. The longer the delay in this type of scenario the worse it becomes and they will begin to gain in confidence, move in hard and fast. Ordinarily in this type of dangerous confrontation once we had disarmed him he would have got a right pasting but he was so pathetic. All he got was a hard slap across the chops and a boot up the arse from Pete.
We also let him know that if he came anywhere near the place tonight that he would most definitely be feeling the worse for wear in the morning. I looked at my watch; we had only been at the place an hour.
There were no more incidents that night in fact it turned out to be one of the best night’s that we had ever done, a steady supply of drinks (soft ones) were supplied by the bar staff, we never had more than two halves of lager each whilst we were working on the door. After yes during no, that was part of our unwritten code, the band dedicated their last number to the two lads on the door it was called black velvet; the very attractive lead singer did an excellent rendition. She was looking at me all through the song; well that’s what I told Pete anyway. We were paid some very fine compliments that night by staff and punters who had thought we had done a very professional job. All that stuff about the previous doormen coming back to sort us out. That was just the usual load of old bollocks; a lot of these characters watch too many films, basically there all talk.

The next venue we were going to look after was a large place in Ealing, a very busy bar just by the green, there was four or sometimes five of us on that door, we had worked here before a couple of times so we knew the routine. Pete and I worked inside and let the regular team sort out the front, they know all the faces that aren’t welcome, so there’s not much point us being on the front doors, we may be letting in punters who have been barred. There was one large staircase where one of us would stand and the other one would be positioned above at some distance away on a high balcony, which overlooked the whole of the ground floor area. Communication was the problem in this place the music being deafening put the block on using the radios so we acquired a small flashlight each and worked out a couple of signals. Two flashes for assistance, keeping it simple is the name of the game. I was standing on the large staircase, my feet being at about head height of the customers sitting below me, I suddenly felt a hand slowly creeping up the inside of my trouser leg. I was a bit worried about looking down, I just hope that’s a woman’s hand I was thinking to myself, there are some very weird people about you know. I look down and was relieved to see a very pretty young woman attached to the other end. She was a regular from the other club just having a bit of a laugh with her mates. We only had one idiot to deal with, this guy had decided that he didn’t want to leave at closing time and that he was going to finish the two pints he had left and there was no way he was leaving before he had done so. We have the place cleared apart from the arse hole that by now is just starting on his second pint; he has disregarded the polite manner in which he was being asked to leave. I have had enough of this we will be here all night with this bloke, I ask him to put his drink down and leave the premises.
“Fuck off I’m finishing my drink”.
An attitude adjustment is required my own particular way to adjust this type of punters attitude went something like this. As soon as he said that as far as I’m concerned he leaves me with very little choice, a left handed slap down and grab onto his right wrist with an immediate right-handed grip onto the throat, now I have control. You have to do it really quick and with power otherwise you’ll lose the initial momentum, he’s a big lad about six two and roughly 15 stones but once you have the momentum going it’s not too difficult to get them were you want them to go. Pushing him backward towards the exit with Pete going in front to open the doors, we manage with a bit of a struggle to throw him outside. We pass the manager who was looking a little concerned at what was happening, as we close the doors the manager says -
“That was a bit rough”.
It wasn’t in fact it was a very controlled exhibition of a perfectly executed ejection technique. Look, at the end of the day the guy was drunk and started to get a little aggressive who knows that last pint he wanted to finish may have just been enough to tip him over the edge and become violent. I dealt with him before he got to that stage and he was thrown out suffering an injury only to his pride. I turned to the manager and suggested to him that he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and further more I would not try to tell him how to pour a pint of beer. My guess is that the manager was probably fairly new to this game and has rarely seen a punter being treated in this manner. As we were leaving the place the guy who had been thrown out had decided to wait outside with a friend and engaged us with a few choice words, well I think we have heard all that before and decide to ignore it. They were just a pair of pissed up pricks looking for trouble who got all their courage from the bottom of a beer glass. As we started to walk away Pete notices that they are starting to follow us.
“Ok Pete we’ll go this way across the green and into the dark if they want to have a go I’ll choose when and where”.
We take a slight detour and led them unsuspectingly into the middle of the green.
They continue to follow shouting abuse all the way. We slow down a bit because we are roughly in the middle of the green and in a nice little area, in the dark with no one else around just where I want them. We allow them to get close enough and then decide to turn and confront our pursuers they were surprised to see us turn around and face them, turning the tables as it were. The hunters now becoming the hunted, it suddenly dawned on them that they might have been lured into a trap. They had thought our bottle had gone and that we weren’t going to do anything. I turn and give the guy who had all the mouth a hard shove into the chest; Pete challenges the other guy who runs away leaving his mate alone in the dark and in the shit.
The shove was intended to do two things, the first was to get him to launch his attack there by suckering him into a powerful back kick to the stomach, which he definitely deserved after the amount of abuse and threats he was dishing out. The push away also gives you the right distance to execute the technique which I had practiced hundreds of times in the little gym, an extremely effective strike and a definite finisher when done correctly. Fortunately for him I didn’t have to use it, his bottle went completely and he also decided to run away shouting as he ran that if we touched him he would go to the police. Just like a lot of these types of “weekend warriors” when it came down to it all he could do was talk like a hard man. You have to be ready though; encounters with these types of characters can be very unpredictable and sometimes your challenge will be accepted, remember never underestimate anyone. I have a feeling that I might run into these fella’s again one day.