One-Eyed Baz

by Barrington Patterson

  RUPERT & TODD

  Rupert: Remember Sutton Coldfield?

  Todd: Yeah, we used to go down there when we started travelling out of town, getting a bit more adventurous!

  Rupert: We used to go down there because they had a mob that ran with Villa and we needed Barrington down there. Because we were young, they could overpower us, but we’d keep going. If we had a fight and Barrington wasn’t there, we wished he was because he was like the strength in the firm.

  Todd: We even went through periods where we used to have competitions to see who could knock the most people out. Barrington would say he’d done the most and I’d say, ‘No you haven’t, I have,’ and then Rupert would say he’d done the most but one of the others would say, ‘Yeah, but that geezer wasn’t completely unconscious!’ We were young and reckless.

  Rupert: At West Ham v Birmingham 1984, I remember we were at the game and Barrington got kicked out. I also remember one night these Man Utd lads came walking past and started getting cocky. So we had words and they’ve gone, ‘See ya!’ Barrington and this other guy went and fucking wasted ’em! They gave it to ’em big-time just round the ramp on the entrance to the shopping centre. This was in 82/83. Boy, did they get beat!

  I just love fighting! Anything for a fight! I was never interested in the game – I was just interested in a row before and after. I don’t really like football; pussies play football and roll around on the floor.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I remember my first game, in the 82/83 season, and thinking, There are no niggers here! My first away games came a season later and then I was going to any big game after that; I can remember going to Leeds and being ambushed. I remember some games where I absolutely shat myself.

  Leeds at home, Leeds away, West Ham at home, Millwall away twice – fucking hell, out of all the matches, that is the one that stands out more than any other!

  All we heard about Millwall was that they were just like Leeds – a bunch of racists! We thought they were among the top dogs in London, but we always rated West Ham and Tottenham higher at the time. Everyone was geared up, but guys from the black and Asian communities were really geared up for Millwall.

  I left work early that day and met up with the lads in town. ‘We ain’t buying a fucking train ticket! There’s a couple of hundred of us going down there.’ We went straight through the barriers and got on to the train. Some of the lads bought a McDonald’s and others had cans of lager for the train, but there was a big police presence. We had a firm of 200-to-400-strong and everyone was up for the fucking row.

  Everyone sat on the train chilling out, playing cards and cracking jokes. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Euston station. As soon as we got off the train, the police had their own fucking firm there! They were taking photos, asking our names and where we were from. Everyone had scarves over their faces, but they were telling us that anyone covering his face would be arrested.

  I had a Burberry shirt and jacket, blue jeans and trainers and a scarf over my face. We were just about to break off from the police escort when they shouted, ‘Come ’ere, lads! You’re with this lot, ain’t ya?’

  We had a bit of a reputation at this time because we’d stood with a couple of top-rated English firms. So we thought that not only would we be facing Millwall but that we’d also have to fight other London teams – probably West Ham and Spurs. The police put us on another train to the Millwall ground, but we managed to break off and meet up with a couple of guys from Birmingham who now lived in London. Around 20 of us managed to get out of the pub and through a back door, then fucked off and left the rest with the police escort.

  We stayed close by so we could see where the escort was and what was happening. Then the police put us on this train to Bermondsey. As we pulled up, all we could hear was boom – boom! The train was being fucking bricked! I’d never been to Millwall’s ground but I could see it was near a fucking rough housing estate. Through every little corner you could see a firm. The police had their riot shields, but we were being bricked from every corner of the ground. They marched us into the ground, close to the pitch, then put us in an upper tier. We were behind the goal and some of us black lads took our shirts off. They were shouting, ‘Fucking niggers!’ We were shouting, ‘Sieg heil!’ A lot of Millwall were singing to Birmingham, ‘You’ve got a town full of Pakis!’ When Birmingham scored we were singing, ‘One-nil to Pakistan!’

  Nothing could really go off in the ground, so we just stood there laughing. We were singing our songs about what was going to happen when we got outside, how we were going to have it with ’em. We gave ’em the ‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’ and you could see they just fucking hated it. The atmosphere inside that ground was electrifying. The police tried to lock us all in about 15 minutes before the game’s end, but I left with the final 15 minutes to go. The police said they were going to keep the Blues behind after the game, but we started fighting them and breaking down doors. We just wanted to get out and get at fucking Millwall!

  All of a sudden, the gates opened and it was like a battleground, like derelict buildings on a bombsite. There were bricks everywhere, cars turned over and a police horse had been fucking slashed and was lying on the ground! A big firm of us had to walk down to the train station, through a housing estate, and guys were popping up everywhere to try to brick us. They were throwing bricks, bottles, bangers – it was like a proper fucking warzone! This was on a whole different level. Some of the lads were glad the police were there, otherwise someone would have died. They were protecting us with their riot shields. We got on to the train and even that got smashed up – it was bricked from the outside and we smashed it up on the inside.

  Even today, people still talk about that day at Millwall. It was one of the worst ever. It was football violence but there was no actual clash between us. And Millwall didn’t like it because they couldn’t get to us, so they smashed their manor up. We were shocked because there were bricks coming from all different angles, but I think the police were scared. Millwall didn’t come out and fight us though. It’s not as if they stood in front of us saying, ‘Let’s ’ave it!’ And if they had, we’d have been a big enough, game enough firm that day.

  * * *

  Another game that sticks with me was when we went to Tranmere, another cup game. I’ve never been called ‘nigger sunshine’ in my life, before or since. We had a cup match away at Tranmere and a firm-and-a-half turned up for it. We travelled up by train and car. I was still living in Handsworth at the time and some of the guys, including Big Chest Leroy and Rupert, came round to mine. About five of us went in my car. We met up with others in town but everyone shot off at different times. We drove our cars up to a service station outside Liverpool – where we had a laugh and were chatting up the girls – and called taxis to take us into Tranmere.

  I think we got there around 11am. People could tell we were from out of town. From inside the car, we’d ask them where the football ground was, but they just didn’t want to talk to us. People would walk off and ignore us, five black lads in a car, wondering, What the fucking hell is going on? We drove on and asked a group of lads where the ground was. ‘There’s no fuckin’ darkies up ’ere!’ was their answer.

  One of the lads tried to jump out of the car, totally furious, but they warned us, ‘No! You can’t do that around ’ere!’ Just walking down the streets, you’d see a bunch of lads and it was, ‘Darkie! Darkie! Darkie over there!’

  As soon as the police clocked us, they were round us like flies around shit. They locked us in a pub but some of us managed to get out. I got out before the start of the game and it was going off all over the place. We sent some guys over to have a row, so that the police went over to them while we were breaking into the fruit machines. In those days, it was expensive to go up there, so you had to make your money back. We took the machines off, bashed them and raided them.

  We must have been in there a good hour-and-a-half before the police said we had to start making our
way to the ground. Everyone started walking and just having a laugh in a firm of about 200 of us. All these Tranmere fans that we had to pass were giving it the wanker sign and more or less all you could hear was ‘niggers’, etc. Even during the match, all you got off the Tranmere guys was ‘darkies’ and ‘coons’. There were a few skirmishes but everyone got into the ground, where the police started to get all agitated and lashed out at us with truncheons. It was clear to me that neither the fans nor the police had ever seen so many black lads at the football in their life and appeared to feel threatened by us.

  RUPERT

  Rupert: I was in Tranmere with him one year on the last game of the season. I always remember that day: we had the end behind the goal and there were no police but for some stupid reason, halfway through the game, they wanted to come in but the boys wouldn’t let them in so it went off between them. They’d been looking on the cameras and trying to target certain members of the firm. After the game, me and Barrington are in the park and all these police have pulled out of nowhere and gone hurtling down the road, so we’ve pulled out and followed them. They’ve all gone into this petrol station and everyone at that station got beats. The police gave it to them and they were all dressed like Robocop.

  We went to the game and there were a few rows, but nothing much. Then we came out and it just went off! All you could hear was: ‘The darkies are over there!’

  Later, we heard that Tranmere were up the road; we all rolled out of the pub and went to find them. They had a firm of around 50; some of them were real dressers but some were like tramps from a local estate.

  We were in some boozer without any character at all, near the train station. Someone walked in and said, ‘They’re over there’ – across the road from the pub. We all piled out and had our bottles ready, lined up on some road on a council estate. It was really rough, with boarded-up windows and houses with no curtains. It was a really trampy area.

  I think there were about 70–80 of us and about 30–40 of them. Everyone brought their bottles out and started throwing them. When we ran out, we ran into them. I was getting bashed all over the place, but we chased and caught a few of them. We were stamping on their hands; we gave them a good hiding and headed back to the pub. Then the police turned up and it was like they had drafted in every available officer from all over Merseyside.

  They came into the pub and started clattering some of the lads with their truncheons. Police and Blues were running everywhere. Fucking Tranmere were running everywhere! All you could hear was: ‘You black bastards!’ ‘You niggers!’ ‘Get outside, get outside!’ Then they just left us there.

  We got into our cars and headed back to Birmingham city centre. After we got home, we went to a party at Edward’s Number 8 bar. We had a chat about it. There were about 60 of us dressed in our Burberry and Aquascutum. We all looked the part – know what I mean?

  * * *

  At home, we had Arsenal in a midweek night game and we thought we would batter them senseless. Me and my boys had it with them before the match in a row that went on for 10–15 minutes; we ended up running for our lives around the Bull Ring, even though we’d ambushed them on the way from the station. We gave it to them but suddenly they put us on the back foot; I ended up running down the ramp and straight into a taxi.

  I remember another time when we were uptown on a Saturday evening; Birmingham were playing Arsenal but I had no intention of going as I had no money. But we all gathered because we knew Arsenal were coming. There were about 15 of us hanging around by the train station.

  About 20 of them got off the train. We ran into them and bang, bang, bang! The police didn’t want to know, so we got a few hits in and then we legged it. Sometimes, when you’re fighting, you forget about the CCTV cameras.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When we came out of being rude boys, we started to get into the jazz funk scene. On Sundays, they would have these all-dayers all over the country, in nightclubs that were open for the duration. I remember being in the Rock City in Nottingham, when this white lad came in dressed from head to toe in Burberry. He made the mistake of walking into the toilets and when he came out he had fuck-all on – he’d been taxed for the lot. That’s what we went to these all-dayers for. Birmingham Townies put the fear of God into people. The head doorman would come up to me, saying, ‘Please control your lads – we don’t want no trouble in here tonight.’

  We would take coaches to The Place in Stoke-on-Trent – me, Todd, Rupert, Kenyon, maybe 10 of us in all. We still went to football and a lot of these jazz funkers didn’t like it, because we would bring trouble to The Place. At their all-dayer, we were all having a really good time, chatting up girls, laughing and joking. At the end of the day, we were sitting back on the coach, having a laugh, until it went off outside with all these London lads.

  We immediately piled back off the coach and started running into these cockneys, giving it to them. All of a sudden, I felt a bash on the head – a brick had hit me square on the forehead, full force, and knocked me straight down on the floor. I got up with blood pouring from the gash on my head, wiped it off and started battling away. Some of the guys managed to pull me out of it and took me to the hospital, where I got stitched.

  When I got back, I’d missed the coach, but one of the guys that took me to hospital in his car offered to take us back to Birmingham. After that, every time that Birmingham and London mixed in the same place there would be fights – even in clubs in different cities, like Rock City in Nottingham or Seventh Heaven in Doncaster. These all-dayers were just fighting, fighting, fighting – though I was also seeing women. I had my first child, Tara, when I was still in Birmingham at this time, as a teenager running around single.

  We used to go to Wigan for the all-dayer scene, when they used to have the old jazz funk. We knew there were a few black lads there, but when we went to football I don’t think they’d ever seen so many niggers landing in their town centre. There were 40–50 of us and we didn’t know what we were coming up against. They knew who we were but we didn’t know who they were.

  We were walking around the town centre and we went to a few pubs, but we never got any trouble. We were getting plenty of looks though, as they’d never seen 40 black lads walking through their town centre. Even when we sat down in McDonald’s, people were staring at us, though the girls were fine as to them we were just the fucking lads.

  About a mile and a half away from the ground, we had it off with Wigan. It was nothing much but we thought we’d better show our presence. The police were quickly on the scene, they were watching our every move. It was just a quick off – bang, bang, bang and see ya later! We got in our cars and fucked off.

  MAL

  I lost track of him for a bit but I used to see him in town with all the rude boys; they used to kick in the doors. I met up with him and a couple of the other Zulu boys and he introduced me to them. We went to a club and this woman was having a go at one of the guys. One of the bouncers came over and he could see Barrington, because you could always see him standing above everyone, and he said to him, ‘Don’t get involved in this.’ Barrington didn’t kick off – but he could have.

  I was brought up with Black Danny. I used to live in Terrace Road and he lived on Villa Street, just around the corner from me, and we’ve known each other since we were six or seven years old. Black Danny was friends with a guy called Lloydy, one of Villa’s main lads at the time, who is also my cousin. We’ve always been friends and, as we’re related, we’ve never clashed.

  I remember going to a match and seeing Black Danny, though we’d give each other a miss. We’ve had it off with Villa loads of times and always had to go looking for them. I remember a firm of us coming out of their ground, walking all the way around and there were no Villa in sight. We went down there looking for them, they didn’t turn up and they tried to claim a fucking victory!

  Villa were in the old First Division, now the Premiership, and we were always in the lower leagues during the mid-e
ighties, so we hadn’t met for a long time. We’ve had it with West Brom and Wolves, but Villa are the main target. On one occasion that I remember, me, Todd, Rupert and about 15 of us met up in town and went to a pub in Broad Street. Half of us were in tracksuits. I always like to wear loose clothing so that I can punch, kick and run in them.

  When we got to the boozer, the doorman said, ‘Sorry, you can’t come in wearing tracksuits.’

  ‘You fucking what?’

  ‘You can’t come in wearing tracksuits.’

  I pushed him out of the way and we walked into the pub.

  Afterwards, we all got taxis down to Villa Park, but I missed all the fighting that went on down Rocky Lane. It was all organised and, as it was going off, people were getting phone calls saying, ‘Get down ’ere, get down ’ere!’

  Rocky Lane is the street in Aston where everyone arranged to have it off. There’s a pub nearby and when we got there it was unbelievable. You could hear battle cries:

  ‘ZULU!’

  ‘C-Crew!’

  Villa had outnumbered the Blues but we stood there and gave it to them. It was the sort of fight where nobody would run off, just like when we played West Ham. Apparently, there were police stood there with their handheld cameras. They had it so easy that day – I wish I’d been there, I’d have been lamping the police with their bloody cameras!

  When the Blues played Villa at Birmingham one time, we were coming up from one of the boozers in Digbeth and we got a telephone call saying Villa were coming over the dual carriageway. So we all ran up to the top, where the pub is. There were about 200 lads up by the dual carriageway; somehow I made my way to the front of the firm. We were walking up and could see quite a few black lads coming down. All we heard was ‘C-Crew, C-Crew!’ Me, Brains, Rupert and Dougal all stood there. Up ahead I could see Black Danny, my cousin and another couple of lads I knew. We were heading away from Birmingham’s ground, with Villa coming towards us. Everyone squared up, but then Villa took out baseball bats and knives. We just ran into them, though I bypassed Danny and my cousin.