I think the Leeds fans ran on to the pitch to get away from the burger van on fire and the collapsing wall. So we just decided to run them on the pitch. It really kicked off – what a row! I was in my fucking element, man! I stood with a few of the lads as punches and kicks were thrown, like I was in some kung fu movie. People were getting dropped like flies.
I remember this white lad, a Blue, who stood back to back with a black lad and they were knocking out everyone in sight. Anyone who got in the way got banged, and after the game it happened again. All of us Blues lads went to the waste ground and the police came over. We started bricking them and chasing them off; they tried forming a line of riot shields but we gave it to ’em. We hammered them.
After 15–20 minutes, everyone disappeared and then walked back towards town. Some of us regrouped around the back of some houses in the backstreets, watching where the helicopter was. If you could see it, then you knew where the police were. We walked down the side-streets on the estates while Leeds walked past with the police. Bottles and bricks went raining over, anything that we could throw at them. The police chased us for a full half-mile and then we just walked back into town.
We waited round by the train station and, when Leeds arrived, it happened all over again. Everyone was running all over the place. One of the lads had some darts and he was throwing them at people. It kicked off outside the station and the police were chasing everyone with their truncheons before they got Leeds back inside.
A lot of people knew me because I was a name and I was always fighting around town – not just at football but on the club scene too. I was causing trouble, having it off with people; I made a name for myself slowly, gradually. When I first got into town I was just some guy from Handsworth. Then I started linking up with a group of lads from different areas, black lads, white lads and Asians. We were all out to do the same thing – earn some money.
* * *
Another time, we met up at New Street station for an away game at Leeds, about 30–40 lads – black, white and a few Asian. Everyone was up for it, buzzing. We thought of getting off at the stop before Leeds and heading that way, but the police were waiting in heavy number, so we stayed on the train. They put us in an escort and it was the usual verbals – we were calling them ‘scabs’ and everything. Back then we still looked upon Leeds as a racist place, even though they had a small black community. The police held us up for half an hour on the platform, searching every one of us thoroughly before putting us on to waiting buses and moving us to a pub. There were the usual attempts to break the escort but the police weren’t having any of it.
We knew they would turn up for the Blues, obviously having heard about our reputation. Nothing went on inside the ground. We were kept in for half an hour after the game and, as we came out, all you could hear was ‘Leeds! Leeds! Leeds! We are Leeds!’ and all that kind of shit. We were shouting, ‘Scum! Scum!’ as a few bottles came flying over. It didn’t faze us. We thrived on the atmosphere of being surrounded by all these racists in yellow and white scarves, hundreds and hundreds of them. We didn’t carry colours, we were dressers.
As the bricks and bottles were raining down on us, the police didn’t do anything. But, as soon as we turned to have a go back at them, they took action and waded into us. We were basically caught in their ambush and just had to stay together as a pack. Some of us were breaking away to have a go, but we were getting stranded as too many of our own felt too threatened to back us up.
The police eventually got us back on the buses and away. When we got to the train station we’d had enough, as we felt the police were taking the piss out of us. So we set fire to the bins and used them as a barricade to push forward.
This resulted in a full-on scuffle with the police, until we got back on the platform and pushed back on to the train. Among ourselves the usual inquests started: ‘We should have done this,’ ‘We should have done that.’ Not for the first time, the call was that we were disorganised as a firm. A good few lads were hurting from the ambush or the lashing from the police. Between certain teams there will always be a history there. No one is going to forget what happened at Leeds, and this was always going to be their revenge for what happen at St Andrew’s – when their fan died after a wall inside the ground collapsed.
CHAPTER FIVE
I moved to Coventry from Birmingham in 1987, after Coventry City won the FA Cup that year. I came over here for a weekend to see what it was like. Then I rang my mum and said, ‘I ain’t coming back.’ I ended up staying here. I met a girl from Coventry called Alison, in Rock City, the Nottingham nightclub, and she later became my first wife. That’s why I stayed. We got married; things were going fine. But later, even though I was married, I still wanted to be single; I was nightclubbing, shagging around.
At this time, there was a bit of a black and white thing going on in Coventry; it had a name as a racist area and you had blacks fighting whites. I’d first started working the doors when I was about 18 or 19 in Birmingham, for a guy called Glen. When I used to work the doors in Birmingham, you could see the football politics and its effects. You would get guys from Manchester slip in, give it loads of sign language that they fancied something and then get clattered; they’d get drawn out and bashed up. We had a couple of Villa lads think that the Blues wouldn’t notice them, but someone went, ‘Look over there, that’s so and so,’ and the next thing you knew they were battered.
This was always going to happen to people coming from out of town on to the club scene in a city like Birmingham, with its vibrant nightlife. I can remember some real trouble when a few Arsenal got into a club and started trying to bully. Londoners are much like Americans – LOUD, they really do remind me of bigmouthed Americans, and it’s not always the football lads.
For a couple of years, this served as my learning curve as to how things were run. When I moved to Coventry, I started doing things my way. I had an altercation at a nightclub where I went down to sort out this doorman. I was out with a friend called Froggy and we went to The Bull’s Head in Binley Road, Coventry. Froggy went up to the bar and bought two drinks; he gave the girl behind the bar a £20 note – she only gave him back change for a tenner. So there was a big argument in the pub with the bar staff, then the manager came: ‘I’m gonna get my doorman!’
I went out to the car, grabbed my baseball bat and whacked the manager. I walked out the pub and thought, Fuck it! That’s it, end of.
About two weeks later, I was in the gym, just finishing my training session; I came out of the gym, took my training clothes off and got into the shower. About 10 or 15 minutes later, I came out and, all of a sudden, four big lads came in the gym. One of the lads, who I knew as Dave, put his hand across one of the cubicle doors and said, ‘You come down my fuckin’ pub again, there’s gonna be trouble.’
So I’m thinking, I’m stark bollock naked, there’s four big lads ’ere – fair enough, mate, no problem. I put my hands up and went, ‘I’m sorry – I’ll keep away from your pub.’
Then afterwards I got changed, didn’t think anything of it and walked out – but for at least a month it kept playing on my mind. I was in town one Saturday and I thought, Fuck it! I walked up to a club called Studio 21 where this doorman was working. I went to the door and another doorman said, ‘You’re not coming in.’
‘’Ey, fuck you!’ I pushed him out of the way and walked in.
It was a massive club and it was busy; I was standing behind a pillar. So obviously this doorman was radioing to the rest of the doormen: ‘We’ve got some problems on the front door.’
They all came running towards the front door as I was hiding behind this pillar. The last doorman running was the guy I was after, so I’ve tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘So what are you saying now, mate?’
He just went BAM! Straight on my jaw!
I turned around and looked at him – he didn’t drop me or anything – and went, ‘Is that it, ya cunt?’
I grabbed him, got him on the flo
or, then mounted him and started raining down punches. I was punching him for about two minutes. Everybody was stood round watching when, all of a sudden, I felt a big kick to my jaw. I fell off him, got up and backed off a bit. This big fat guy they used to call Roberto pinned me against the bar with his big belly.
I can’t move because this guy’s 20-odd stone. So I’m reaching behind the bar, trying to grab something. I’ve managed to grab this ashtray; I’m just about to whack him on his head with it when someone’s grabbed my hand: ‘If you do that, you’re gonna end up in prison for a long time.’
I now know that guy as Andre. Since that day 20-odd years ago, he’s always been there. He’s been there for my kickboxing career, and he’s been there with me for nearly every fight I’ve fought, travelling the world with me as corner man in my fighting career. He’s still my friend, my training partner and my works partner until this day. He’s been like a brother to me and we went on to set up our own security firm: JAB UK – Johnny (who joined Andre on the doors when I was in prison), Andre and Barrington. I also had the honour of being Andre’s best man in 2012.
They let me walk out; none of the doormen said anything. Then I went into town, rounded up a couple of guys to come back to the club, and this was probably about one o’clock in the morning. By the time we got back to the club, it was closed down – all the doors were shut! But the doorman was in hospital for about two weeks; he was pleading: ‘Please, I don’t want no trouble!’
It’s mad how things pan out. Jez, the gaffer of the bar who I had the hump with over Froggy’s change incident, turned out to be a good mate of mine; we often laugh about it.
ANDRE
I met Baz about 25 years ago and I can sum him up in a number of ways: he is a best mate that would stand his ground for you, no matter what; he is loyal – if he is your friend, then he’s a friend for life; he is really funny and he is fiercely protective of his family and close friends. He is like a brother to me. And he is naughty – but nice!
I met Baz in a bizarre situation really. I was acting as a peacemaker between him and another doorman I was working with at the time. He and Baz had come to blows and I was asked to try to sort it out. So a meeting was arranged and I was told to go to Baz’s house. At the time, me and him were only on speaking terms, not mates, so as you can imagine it was like going into the lion’s den. Could he turn on me? Could this go wrong?
Cutting a long story short, Baz was reasonable, the issue was sorted and we agreed to meet up the next week and go out for a drink together. From that first night out, we became like brothers and we were out every weekend together: Baz and Andre.
* * *
The first club that I got on the doors with Andre in Coventry was in an area called Cheylesmore. Reflections was the roughest place in town. At the time, it was the main club in town where all the locals came to do their drug deals and link up, and it was frequented by a lot of lads, faces and dealers. It was the kind of place where the birds were like the blokes – glassing each other.
I approached it by offering them respect: I had to do my thing when I was there at night-time and they could do whatever they did in the day – smoke weed, etc. But if I and my team were working, they were going to have to be more discreet about it than they had before.
I was grafting five or six nights a week there, earning good dough. One night, I was standing on the front door and this guy came running out of the club, covered in claret. He was in a rush to leave so I’m thinking, He’s glassed someone.
I chased after him and bashed his head off for causing shit on my door. It transpired he had stabbed two guys.
Every other night, it was the same in there. I was banging people out left, right and centre. I really had to earn my dough. That’s where I made my stamp and got my reputation. At the time, gun crime was rife in Coventry; it’s never been my thing and I would rather have a straightener. But I was standing in the club one night, talking to a friend, and someone walked in and shot the guy standing behind me. That’s just how they went about things.
As time went on, my reputation built up in Coventry and I was getting offered top dough to sort out troubled clubs and bars. But it was blacks versus whites and there I was in the middle, because I’m a Brummie. I couldn’t get on with the black guys because I’m from Birmingham and the white guys didn’t like me because I’m black and from Birmingham.
I also remember working the doors when about five coach-loads of Londoners arrived for this big R&B event being held in the club and it was, ‘We’re from Sarf London,’ we’re this and we’re that. I said, ‘Fuck you, you’re on my fucking manor and you’re not in London now, you fuckin’ cunts!’
I had a couple of good doormen from Birmingham working with me and I can tell you that the Londoners got a fucking hammering. They had to jump back on their coaches and fuck off.
I did have two lads from Coventry working with me inside, but at Reflections I found myself working most nights of the week and fighting every one of those nights to earn my status. I can recall, on a Friday night, fighting six or seven men at once out on the street. I’d be fighting black lads and I’d be fighting white lads, then the black lads would be fighting the white lads and I’d just let them get on with it. As long as it was not inside my club, I’d let them deal with each other.
It wasn’t easy working as a team on the door, as I was an individual and also a bit madder than the others. There were a couple of times I needed a bit of help and had to go over to Birmingham to get a couple of lads to come down for me, as the Coventry lads couldn’t be relied on. You’ve got to take into account that this wasn’t my own team, but I’d hear things like: ‘Oh, they know where I live,’ or ‘I’m not getting involved because they’ll be around my house.’
Fuck that, man, I need you to stand with me!
I did that for years, working with guys I couldn’t rely on until I started making some good friends I could trust with my back. But it was a tough club to work; I’ve experienced guys driving through the door in a car at me; I’ve seen shootings in there, I’ve seen two guys stabbed to death. This is the club I showed Danny Dyer when he was making his Deadliest Men programme; you could say it’s a place with a history.
ANDRE
At this time, Baz and I were both working on the doors at different venues in Coventry. Trust me, the late eighties in Coventry on the door was hard work; most nights you would be fighting. As time went by and after a lot of talking, me and Baz started working together. This was the turning point when we started our own company; it was hard work to begin with but we started getting a lot of contracts so things soon looked good. Baz used to say, ‘You’re the brains, I am the brawn.’
The funny thing was we were getting all the shithole pubs in Coventry that no other companies wanted as they couldn’t manage the clientele that went in these places. But at this time we turned nothing down, and whenever we got a new door me and Baz would go to work it until we cleaned the place up. Then we would put guys in and move on.
There were lots of fights and Baz would NEVER take shit or back down – it’s just not his style. On one particular occasion, there was a guy who came to the door and you could just tell he was a cock straight away (and we had a saying: if you let shit in, then you will have to deal with it, so don’t let it in). I turned him away. He walked off but within two minutes he had picked a fight with an innocent guy (I told you he was a cock) who didn’t want to know. So Baz, who hates bullies, went outside the pub and shouted to him to leave the guy alone. This bully made a massive mistake because he pulled out a knife, turned round to Baz and shouted, ‘Fuck off, you black bastard! Do you want some of this?’ He was waving his blade.
Before this guy had a chance to say anything else, Baz was running towards him. His face showed completeshock: he was looking at the knife, back at Baz, back at the knife. (He must have been thinking, What the fuck? Who is this fucking nutter? I have the knife, not him!) Baz was getting closer and 18 stone of muscle runni
ng at you is quite scary. This bully got on his heels but Baz is fast for the first 200 metres (if he’s not caught you by then, you may get away).
The guy ran around a bus and back towards the pub. At this point, I stepped back into the doorway till he ran past and swept his feet. Let’s just say the bully got what he deserved. I don’t think he’d ever do anything like that again.
Not many people get to know how funny Baz is. Trust me, his sense of humour is second to none and he never misses an opportunity to take the piss out of anyone in his company. On one occasion, I was working with him, he was on the door and I was inside. Yes, it kicks off and I am fighting with a lot of people. To cut a long story short: by the time Baz finally got there it was all over. I had a nice new red shirt instead of my nice fresh white one.
I said to him, ‘Where the fuck was you?’
Baz said, ‘Is that your blood on your shirt?’
I said no, so he laughed and said, ‘All this sparring we’ve been doing has paid off then. I trained you well – that’s my boy!’ Then he went back to the bird he had been chatting to.
CHAPTER SIX
It wasn’t until I worked in Coventry in the late 1980s that my kickboxing actually started. At this time, I was still trying to combine my bodybuilding with kickboxing. One was helping me with the other: I was the guy with one eye smaller than the other who looked like the Incredible Hulk.
I used to be reasonably good at art at school and I used to sit drawing these muscleman figures. It wasn’t until after I left school that I started training at a Community Centre in Birmingham with one of my close friends at the time, Charles Gappa. When we first started, there were these two brothers in Newtown who were training there; they were pretty big and I always wanted to be as big as them. So we used to train hard there about four or five times a week.
One-Eyed Baz Page 6
