by Bill Carson
“Fuck off, you Scots git,” the bloke replied.
Here we go, I thought, as I backed off and leant up against the wall, facing our friend.
As the guy made a sudden dash for the door, Alex’s hairy forearm flashed past my nose; his fist was on a direct collision course with the guy’s skull. It sounded like a cricket ball hitting a coconut when it struck. The guy went down flat on his back and landed about six feet away from me, but almost immediately jumped up again and looked straight at me. He was now really pissed off. His face reddened as he let out a scream like in those war films when the army are doing their bayonet training.
“AAAARRRRGH!” he screamed and he charged forward.
He came rushing at me, but I remained perfectly still. I was relaxed with my eyes trained on him, range-finding. I waited for him to cross the imaginary chalk line, and when he entered the ‘zone’, I released the mother of all front kicks with a loud “Kiai!” He ran straight into the powerful kick. My size eleven right boot connected perfectly and momentarily disappeared into the soft centre of his belly: the force of the kick literally bent him in two.
His feet left the ground and he was now airborne and heading backward in the direction he had come from. Landing about five feet away on his back for the second time that night, he was winded, dazed and confused. He stayed down and was doubled up in pain when we got to him. We quickly flipped him over and put him into two very painful arm locks. Unluckily for him, a copper happened to be passing by at that moment and asked our mate on the floor, “What are you going to do if these nice gentlemen let you go?”
“I’m going to fight them,” he said as he began to recover.
He was then given a nice pair of shiny government-issue bracelets to wear and was thrown into the back of a waiting police van. The copper came back about an hour later and told us that he felt sorry for him and had let him go because, as they approached the nick, he started to cry and promised to go home.
We noted a few problem areas at the club that needed addressing. The place wasn’t that bad trouble-wise, but there was room for improvement. There just needed to be a little tweaking here and there.
The club had one or two local hard men who’d made it their own. We’d clocked them, made a mental note of them and decided that they simply had to go. They were cocky and arrogant and quite a violent little bunch who attracted the wrong kind of people. Pete and I were now on a mission – a mission to clean up this here town! (Spits into imaginary spittoon.)
We were determined that things were going to change for the better as we had planned on sticking around for a while. This was our club now: we were in control. We had a quick briefing and then took the place by the scruff of its fucking neck. But it wasn’t going to be easy: these creatures weren’t going to give up without a fight. ‘No hats, no jeans, no trainers’ the new sign on the wall said. Our plan was to sweep the rubbish away and literally clean the house and therefore create a new, vibrant, safe night spot for the decent people out there. So that night we put operation ‘Zero Tolerance’ into effect.
First on the list was a loudmouth, very aggressive Asian bodybuilder. He was a strong-looking fucker and was as wide as he was tall. He was a bit of a nutter as well and was always fighting and causing problems. With his square head and mop of thick black hair and tough features he was instantly recognisable at the back of the queue. As he got closer, it looked as if someone had played a game of noughts and crosses on his forehead with a knife.
Your card is marked, my old son, I thought as he passed by.
It didn’t take long, and about an hour later three skinheads decided to throw their weight around. They began to have a go at the Asian fella and his wife. Now, this fella could look after himself but his wife tore into them with language that would have put Bernard Manning to shame.
We were watching the proceedings unfold and we could see that the Asian fella was now fronting the three skinheads up. He started shouting and screaming at them and they were doing the same back to him. Meanwhile his wife was continuing to give them a good volley of verbal as well. Time to put an end to it, I thought.
I quickly moved in and stood between the warring parties. I managed to calm the Asian guy down and escort him and his wife out of the front doors. To tell you the honest truth, I wanted him to have a pop at me because he was the sort of bloke who really deserved a pasting, but I couldn’t justify it as it was the three lads behind me who were the aggressors and not him, on this occasion. His time will come, I told myself as I turned my attention to the three skins behind me.
The skinheads continued to cause more trouble and begin going after the guy, shouting some more abuse. What’s wrong with these people? The couple were outside now and walking away. Pete and I turned around to deal with three skinheads, who were all laughing at the thought that they had got the Asian fella thrown out of the club. I went to who seemed to be the ringleader and asked him to put his drink down and leave.
“What for? Fuck off, mate,” he said, and waved his hand dismissively in my direction.
As soon as his last words left his lips, my right hand was on his throat and my left hand slapped down on his right wrist. His hand was still holding onto a pint glass. There was no point in trying to appeal to their good nature: they had deliberately come here to cause trouble and no amount of good-intentioned talking was going to make any difference.
Once you have made the decision to eject someone, you have got to be totally committed. A half-hearted effort will only give your adversary the opportunity to counter-attack and then you will be on the receiving end.
If you go in 50% committed you will probably end up by getting 100% battered.
I started to push the guy backwards towards the front doors. A silence had now descended over the crowd and they parted like the Red Sea for Moses. Halfway he started to wriggle out the grip I had on his throat. He dug his heels in and we came to a halt. A Muay Thai knee strike to his ribcage doubled him over and I was able to get him going backwards again. I manoeuvred him over to the doors, and as I was doing so, his mate tried to attack me with a beer glass. Pete grappled with him and then the third guy came at me from the other side.
I switched my grip from the guy’s throat into a headlock, and at the same time I swung my other arm around his mate’s neck. So I had the pair of them in headlocks now. I managed to wrestle them both into the doorway. Pete shoved the other guy outside, and in the melee the ringleader was thrown to the ground. He sat on the floor like a spoilt little kid and went into a tantrum. He started to rant and rave about how he was going to come back and sort us all out. What he actually said was, “I’m going to come back and stick a big fucking knife through your head.” He was pointing at me whilst he said it.
I grabbed hold of him by the collar of his jacket and dragged him unceremoniously out of the doorway and into the street.
“You’re all barred, now fuck off,” I said, and that was that.
Joyce has a discreet word with me later on.
“Well done for dealing with those guys. If at any time you want to take someone down into the cellar to give them a good hiding, feel free to do so.”
To look at her you would think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth… I liked Joyce.
The Asian fella and his wife turned up at around closing time looking for the skinheads. They were both really drunk and very loud. They started to have a heated argument outside the entrance to the club. The fella grabbed his wife by the lapel and raised his fist. It didn’t look as if this was the first time that they’d had this type of altercation. She then smashed a beer bottle on the railings and threatened him with it, promising that if he didn’t back off he would be sorry. Joyce was watching what was happening and said that she wanted these two barred.
“Yeah ok, Joyce, will do,” I said.
Little did she know that we were already going to do it.
Two weeks later…
Pete offered to go and get the teas from the fast fo
od restaurant next door and left his position up on the little stage area next to the DJ. This was, incidentally, the best place to scrutinize all the crumpet from, and Pete could be frequently found there. I was now alone on the front door. Just as Pete disappeared, the Asian guy turned up with three of his pals and he approached the entrance.
“Sorry mate, you’re barred. You’ll have to drink somewhere else,” I said and held out the palm of my hand halting them.
“Leave it out, we’ve been coming here for years. Why am I fucking barred, then?”
He stepped a little closer and I could see that he became a little wary. I’m not a body builder, but I was a good deal taller than him and similar in width. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible and explained that it was because of the argument he’d had with his wife a couple of weeks ago.
“I’m going in to see if my wife’s in there,” he said.
“You’re not going in, and she’s not in there anyway,” I said.
“How do you fucking know that?” He was becoming more aggressive. I could see that his adrenaline was kicking in as his speech became a little less coherent. I remained calm: if the truth be told, I reckoned I could have taken him apart, but I didn’t really want too. By now my patience was beginning to wear a little thin.
“She’s not in there because she’s barred as well,” I said.
With that he started to lose his temper and shaped up as if he wanted to have a go. He swaggered forward. His friends took hold of him by the arms in an effort to restrain him. I had seen him involved in a brawl a while back when I’d been passing by in the car, and he gave a pretty good account of himself. He had some fella up against the wall and was punching the guy with short fast uppercuts to the face. Having had enough of his insults and threats, I asked his companions to release him.
“If he wants to have a go, we’ll have a straightener,” I said.
I knew exactly which technique I was going to use. He was probably only about five nine. I was standing on the step, and so the moment he stepped into the old exclusion zone, it’d be lights out for him. As soon as he was in range, he was going to get a size eleven toe punt right under the chin. Luckily for him, his friends pulled him away. At that moment, Pete the tea boy arrived.
CHAPTER NINE
THE KNIFE MAN COMETH
I got on well with the local constabulary… on the whole. We were at the front doors one evening, in our usual places, when a guy came out from the bar and informed us that some fella, whilst in the middle of a game of pool, had placed a large knife on the side of the table. I think there was a few quid on the game and so he was trying to intimidate his opponent. We went in, and as one of the other lads talked to the guy to distract him, I quickly snatched the knife from the table. He was thrown out, and once outside he asked for the knife back.
We told him to piss off and laughed at the fool. If he didn’t like it, he could always go to the police. Unbelievably he did, and about an hour later three stroppy WPCs turned up, demanding that we hand the knife over as we had committed a theft. And furthermore, if it was not handed over, one of us would be arrested.
We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. So they were saying that we should have let the guy walk out with a knife in his pocket? I tried to explain the situation but they were having none of it. They simply didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say, and kept demanding the knife be returned immediately.
I didn’t have the knife anyway: one of the supervisors from the security company turned up just before the police arrived and so I’d given it to him to take back to the office. The WPCs didn’t believe me and gave us twenty-four- hours to return the knife to the police station. If not, they would be back.
The next evening I collected the knife from the office and went to the police station to talk to someone in authority. I wanted to see if I could get someone to make sense of the situation. I spoke to the sergeant on duty, and his attitude was completely different. He thanked me for taking the knife off the guy and assured me that when he turned up to collect it, he would be arrested for carrying an offensive weapon. I suppose we got the right result in the end. If I see him again I think I’ll just give him a clump anyway.
New Year’s Eve
It hardly seemed possible that a year had passed. It seemed to have flown by. It never bothered me working at this particular time of the year: we always had a good laugh and there was very little serious trouble to deal with. Most people were just pleasantly pissed and happy, and the atmosphere was generally good.
Everyone was having a good time at the night club. The place was decked out with balloons and streamers, and the music was so loud that you could actually see the windows vibrating. Suddenly we got a shout from one of the barmaids that some fella had passed out on the dance area. I went in to find a big fat bloke lying there with his shirt off, flat on his back right in the middle of the dance floor. He was a really big lump and must have been twenty stone or more. I called for Pete to give me a hand.
We managed to drag him part of the way, which wasn’t an easy thing to do with the place absolutely heaving. He started to come around and staggered to his feet. He started to get a little aggressive as he realised that he was being thrown out so I give him a good shove towards the door. He stumbled through the door backwards just as Joyce, the manager, was trying to enter. Poor little Joyce was met by his huge arse and was pinned to the wall outside by it. We came to her rescue and Fat Boy wandered off into the middle of the road and went down flat on his back. The drivers must have thought a new mini roundabout had been built. Joyce thought it was amusing, and at the end of the night she bought us all a few drinks. As we were leaving – bearing in mind that this is about five hours later – I noticed a pair of feet sticking out from behind a bank of fruit machines. It was Fatty: he was bedded down for the night, but God knows how he got back in. Joyce beat a hasty retreat, hopped up onto the bar, flipped her legs over, dropped down on the other side of the bar and Fatty was thrown out for the second, and last, time, hopefully. Happy New Year!
***
February ‘95
It was a cold Friday evening. Pete and I arrived on time as usual, bang on eight, and assumed our positions on either side of the front doors. The head barman came over and asked if he could have a quiet word. I didn’t like the looks of this, and I was right. He has some sad news and he told us that Joyce had died the day before whilst she was on holiday. We were gutted by the news as we were only just getting to know her.
She was young, fit and healthy and full of life. How could she be dead? We couldn’t believe it. What a terrible loss of a young life. I felt sad about it all and especially so for her young child who was now without her mother.
The last time I’d seen Joyce, she was happy – sitting on the sofa in the bar and singing along to a song with a couple of her friends. That’s how I will remember her. God bless.
The place was never quite the same again after Joyce’s death, and it definitely went downhill after that. Successions of managers came and went and then a permanent manager was given the licence. Her name was Jo. She was a very attractive young woman with an outgoing personality. She was slim, blonde and in her mid to late-twenties. She was also an ex-copper. She would often take great delight in reminding me that she still had her uniform and handcuffs upstairs, the little devil.
Actually her being ex-old bill was an advantage for us. She would often have a word on our behalf when the police turned up to the occasional altercation, and even when there was more than reasonable force being applied to our attackers. She spoke up for the lads and me many times. I liked Jo; she was very shrewd but quite shy and vulnerable really, a good-hearted person as well. We had a few laughs with her and she would always sort us out with a couple of beers at the end of the night.
Over the next few weeks a number of different guys were sent down to work with us. Paul was one of the new recruits. He was mean-looking with his close-cropped hair and close-shaven beard. He a
lso had a cut running the entire width of his forehead, apparently caused by someone slashing him with a Stanley knife.
I was standing at the door one night and I happened to notice a very well-known male dancer walking past. I had seen him walk past quite a few times on his way to the train station which was nearby. I think he was performing at the theatre just around the corner. He had a big bunch of flowers with him this time and Paul walked over to him and said, “Have you bought those for me?”
Paul frightened the life out of him: he did a quick couple of side-steps and was away. I never saw him again – he must have taken the scenic route and by-passed the club from then on. Paul had that effect on some people.
Paul stayed with us for about six weeks. That was the quietest period I’d ever had at the club; maybe it had something to do with him. We used to get a few old dossers mooching about, and every Friday night, without fail, the same one used to turn up and try to get in. He was a small old Scots guy. He wore a battered old straw trilby hat with tufts of red hair protruding from underneath the brim. He had elastic bands around his shoes to keep the soles on and he was literally on his uppers. As he came closer to me, I could see the dirt and filth on his shirt – well, it wasn’t like dirt, it was probably more like topsoil.
