Bouncers and Bodyguards

by Robin Barratt

  I agree with Dave Courtney when he says that there will never be the quality of fighters working the door as there was back in the 1970s and ’80s, but that is also because there is not the quality of people wanting to fight the doormen. Now there is no reason to fight. You see, in my day we were fighting people from housing and council estates. For example, back then 20 to 25 blokes would come from one housing estate with the sole purpose of fighting us. You don’t get that now, so doormen don’t need to be the same class of fighters that they were 15 to 20 years ago. Also, because people now sue nightclubs and companies when doormen go over the top, the easy answer is to employ someone who doesn’t really want to get into a fight, who wants to appease rather than sort it. And so, as Courtney says, there isn’t the quality of fighter, because there isn’t the quality of punter any more to cause problems.

  Nowadays, there is a lot less violence in clubs but a lot more violence on the streets, because there are a lot more people going out. For instance, you have 10,000 people going out in Norwich, where I worked for most of my life, on a Friday or Saturday night, so you now have 10,000 chances of a fight. When I was on the doors, there were maybe only 2,000 people out on a Friday or Saturday night.

  Back when I first worked The Ritzy, I would often see four or five people fighting one, but I don’t think you really see that any more, either. Also, back then you would have a lot more time to have a good fight. And I really don’t think people are as nasty and as dirty now as they were back then. Actually, I think people are a lot more frightened, which is why there are so many people pulling out knives on each other. That never happened back in my day. In all the years I worked the doors and got myself into fights, I only remember seeing a knife in a fight twice. There was one time in Central Park, which was the upstairs bar at The Ritzy, and I remember a bloke got killed on London Street, Norwich. But that was 15 years ago. People are now both frightened and lazy – using a knife is a lot easier than having a good bout of fisticuffs with someone.

  When I was 17, I didn’t think working the doors would be something I’d do for life. It was just another job. And I didn’t really understand why they’d asked me. I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ but I didn’t really understand why.

  It wasn’t until I was in the thick of it that I quickly realised that I couldn’t just stand by and watch one of my fellow doormen get into a fight with two or three blokes. Getting stuck in and helping them out became instinctive – second nature. I didn’t really care about the punters. They weren’t my friends; my friends were the six or so blokes I worked with. Punters were the people who came into the club and kicked off, and they generally made for easy pickings. They were usually drunk, but you were not. You were a team, and they were not. The more ruthless you could be, the easier it was.

  Violence has never frightened me. However, I must say that I have never liked violence. It has never rocked my boat, but it has never scared me either. I have never been frightened of being hurt. If anything, I think I was more worried about letting the people I worked with down, because you all rely on each other.

  But it wasn’t all about having fights together; it was also about having some fun. It was all about shagging girls and nicking your mate’s clothes when he was upstairs with some bird. Or running up to him when he was on the job and trying to shove a carrot, which you’d stolen from the kitchen, up the bird’s arse. It was even about the fun of watching other doormen get themselves into trouble, like when one of your mates tried to throw someone out and the rest of us were thinking, ‘Look at the size of that punter. Fuck, you’re in trouble now, buddy. You’re on your own!’ Of course, he was never really on his own. We would always step in sooner or later, but just watching someone else struggle for a bit could be quite funny.

  As a team, we became very close to each other, which I don’t think happens now. Instead of working with each other, doormen now seem to be competing with each other – who can look the best and get down the gym the most. Sadly, many doormen are now like puppets, with the manager, police, council, government and even punters pulling their strings. It is not their fault; it is just the way it is now, which I think is sad. There is no respect any more.

  Back then, the manager knew you ruled by fear and respect. There was no other way to do things. I worked in the Welsh borders when the miners’ strike was on. The managers there were fucking tough and knew that what you stopped at the door you wouldn’t have to throw out of the pub. The front door was where you stood your ground and said, ‘No, you are not coming in.’ What you said to the punters and what you had ready in your hand just in case it kicked off big-time meant that they could bring it on at any time. And when you did have to show your colours, you showed your colours properly. There was no mercy. It wasn’t just a case of banging someone in the mouth. You would do as much damage as possible and be as horrible as you could, because you knew that everybody watching it would never come near you again. And when you have six or so doormen all doing the same, there wasn’t really much that you couldn’t come up against or that would faze you. A good door team was pretty invincible back then.

  I remember a bizarre incident in the foyer at Rick’s Place in Norwich. A group from Great Yarmouth kicked off, and we were having a proper fight. It was a full-on brawl and getting really nasty. There was a young lad working in the cloakroom, and he was leaning out from the hatch and hitting them – and occasionally us too by mistake – with a large piece of wood. It was a free-for-all. People were trying to crawl away, getting hit by stools, strangled, bitten. And then when it was all finished, we laughed about it as we were straightening our ties and mopping up the blood from our broken noses, black eyes and knocked-out teeth – it was just our lives and our job. To us it was nothing; it was the norm for us. And that was what made a good door team a good door team.

  And then, of course, there was the women side of things. Well, we could just never stop, could we? We had a little room at The Ritzy – we used to call it a ‘puppy room’ – which was where most of the doormen took women to shag. When I saw some girl who had just given me a blow job snogging one of my mates in the club a little later, I’d look at him and laugh to myself, thinking, ‘She just had my cock in her mouth.’ But, of course, I wouldn’t tell him until she had finished. That kind of camaraderie also made a good door team, but sadly you really can’t do those sorts of things any more. I don’t know of one club that has a puppy room, and I don’t know many doormen who would use one even if there was!

  Doormen now stand on the doors with their earpieces and their long coats looking as ‘cool’ as they can, but they are not really doing the job any more. What we did back then was watch each other. We didn’t stand there looking good. We would be watching each other all the time: two doormen here; two doormen there. When two people walked off, you would take their place, or when one left you would follow him to see what he was doing. Now it seems as though they just don’t care about each other. The doormen outside are not concerned about the doormen inside. It seems that all they want to do is to stand at the front door, look good and just hope that no one they knock back will say, ‘I’ll come round your fucking house, then.’ I think it would scare them shitless, but it never happens any more.

  Managers also probably now no longer feel safe. Back in my day, a doorman was someone who intimidated people. If someone came to a pub and kicked off, the manager would call his doormen in, and the punter who had kicked off would generally think, ‘Oh, fuck me!’ But someone who weighs 11 stone and says to a punter, ‘If you don’t leave, I am going to call the police,’ is unlikely to prompt the same reaction. Back in my day, the manager actually wanted someone who would turn up at the punter’s house at four in the morning and give him a good kicking. Why would he get a kicking? Because he had been harassing the landlord, despite warning after warning. Back then, there was enormous landlord–doorman loyalty, which definitely no longer exists. Now, you are not even allowed to tell someone to fuck off. Now, managers are
abused all the time, and no one does a thing about it. It is terrible.

  But, as I said, it is not their fault. Being a doorman is a new game now. In our day, we did it for the fun of it. We did it for the camaraderie. We put our safety and our lives on the line for each other. We might be outnumbered five to one but would still go outside and battle with a rugby team if necessary. Doormen just don’t have the opportunity to do these things any more, because now when you put someone out you have to put them in a certain arm or head lock that you have been trained to do, which is fine if the punter is prepared to let you. If not, the doorman is fucked.

  In our day, we fought proper men. When I was 22, I fought blokes of my age now – 45 to 50. Hard men – men who had been fighting all their lives. I can remember when I first started at The Ritzy, I gave all the doormen heavy lead hand weights. I had spent hours making them all. Can you imagine doing that now? Can you imagine the head doorman giving his door team lead weights in case of a battle? But I bet a lot of today’s doormen would secretly like them!

  One time, I was working at Peppermint Park on Rose Lane. Three fucking huge Russian sailors had come into town from the docks at nearby Lowestoft and were pissed off, as we had asked them to leave because they were touching up the female customers. I am not tall, and they towered over me, looking down at me as though I was a piece of shit. We got them outside relatively calmly, and then they decided to have a go. I had to fight really dirty, probably the dirtiest I have ever fought, as I knew I would have got a real hiding otherwise. I heard one of them screaming as I shoved my fingers hard into his eyes, and I hooked my thumb into the side of another’s mouth and felt it split, a bit like chicken from a bone. I think the word must have got around, as we never saw a Russian sailor at that venue again.

  Another memory I have is from my second or third night on the doors at The Ritzy when I was told by the manager to throw two geezers out who were pissing around with a one-armed bandit. I knew I had to show the other doormen my colours. Billy Waters and I went up to these two fucking huge geezers and said, ‘Look, it isn’t my fault, but the manager wants you out.’ I pointed to the manager, and when these two looked over at him we smashed them hard in the bollocks, because we knew they would be a handful. None of this nice stuff. Nowadays, doormen would say, ‘Excuse me, sir, but would you mind leaving, as the manager wants you to go?’ They’d reply, ‘Fuck that. Tell the manager I want to see him.’ And the doormen would actually go and get the manager!

  Fuck me! In my day, the management didn’t want to know. The manager sat in his office, and all he wanted to do was get to half-past two so that he could say, ‘OK, lads, put the chains on the doors, and let’s have a beer.’ Things were completely different. They were a lot rougher, and there were a lot more dangerous situations. For instance, John Tansley and I were working in Central Park when three coaches of black lads turned up. We looked at each other, and I said, ‘This is not going to go well, John.’ Central Park was only a small function room, and they kicked off in the toilets. There was just me and John working that night, and we were the only two white guys in the building. While the manager was in his office sorting through paperwork and reading Penthouse, they were downstairs glassing each other. And it was all over a woman. On that occasion, I must admit that I looked at John and said, ‘No, mate. Nothing to do with us. Let them sort it out between themselves.’ I don’t think this sort of thing happens now, either.

  There are still a few ‘old timers’ around – a few work at the university (of East Anglia) – but not many any more. Most doormen my age gave up doing the doors years ago or were refused a licence because of a criminal record.

  Obviously, because of my situation, I can’t work the doors any more, but if I was, I would certainly miss the old times. Not the violence, but the fun, the one-night stands and even some of the excuses to try and get away from the one-night stands. I remember working with Robin Barratt at Rick’s Place when he spent most of the final part of one evening in the cellar room because two of the birds he was shagging at the same time turned up at the club, alone, waiting for him to finish. He was fucking frozen by the end of the night. We seriously considered asking them both to wait at the bar and calling him out, but we just couldn’t be that cruel.

  I can remember going to some woman’s house to see her after I had finished work one night, because I thought her old man was away. I looked through the window and saw her talking to someone – I couldn’t see who, though. Obviously, I had been there before, and I watched her as she went into the kitchen. I rushed round the side of the house to knock on the kitchen window, but she went straight into the bathroom. A few minutes later, I heard police sirens, so I quickly hid under a hedge in the corner of the garden. The next thing I knew, I was being dragged out by my legs. Someone had reported me for looking through the window, thinking that I was a peeping Tom or something. They put me in the police car, but luckily a copper knocked on her door and she said that she was waiting for me. If she hadn’t, I would have been nicked!

  Another funny moment was when one of my fellow doormen was shagging some bird in the staff toilets at The Ritzy. Billy and I got a champagne bucket full of ice-cold water and threw the whole lot over the door of the cubicle just as he was doing the business. He thought it was hilarious; she almost took my head off.

  I loved going to work every night, as every evening I would have a laugh and some fun, but I don’t think doormen laugh as much on the doors now as we did back then. It is more serious, and everyone is trying to be more ‘professional’.

  Sadly, with a criminal record for a minor firearms offence I won’t be returning to the doors. When I finally get out of prison, I will try and find a normal day job, but I will miss the fun of the doors – I will miss that more than anything else, really.

  I am currently serving my time at Norwich Prison. It all started one day when I was driving down Drayton Road in Norwich on my motorbike from my house to the gym at the Norwich Sports Village nearby. I was pulled over by the police just a few metres from my house. I thought it was my small number plate again, as I had occasionally been pulled over for that in the past. I had been meaning to change it, but you know how things are, and I had never got round to it. Still, I thought that I would probably know the coppers and might be able to talk my way out of it – yet again. I got off my bike in my normal nonchalant manner and asked what the matter was. The copper replied by saying, ‘Sorry, Bob, but we have got to arrest you for a firearms offence.’

  ‘What?’ I asked. It just didn’t register.

  ‘You have a shotgun under the stairs,’ he replied.

  ‘Don’t deny it,’ one of the other coppers said. ‘We know where it is.’

  ‘Yeah, but it is an antique gun. It’s old,’ I said. ‘I was going to put it on my French dresser.’ I didn’t understand what was happening.

  It wasn’t until a few weeks after I had been arrested that I found out that one of my ex-girlfriend’s teenage kids had apparently found the gun under the stairs and had told his mum, who’d decided to go to the police. Forensics tested it, and they put me away because one of the barrels worked. The minimum sentence was five years, but even the local policemen who I knew really well had said that I wouldn’t get that long, not for something so trivial. I also had had no criminal convictions, apart from an occasional parking ticket.

  It went to the magistrates’ court, where my case was referred to the Crown court. Once at the Crown court, my lawyers and I got access to all the statements from the witnesses, and I found out that my ex’s two sons had actually broken into my house, found the gun and had then given it to the police. I was on police bail, but I went looking for them almost every night once I knew what they had done. The kids realised this, and restraining orders were put in place. I wasn’t allowed to pass their house on Drayton Road, where I lived, because they lived 200 yards up the road from me. It got so time consuming and difficult not knowing where I could go, what I could do and who I could
speak to. It consumed my life.

  After that, it was like being on a roller coaster. Every time I read the paper, I looked for crimes and sentences involving firearms – sentences ranged from eighteen months to seven years for robbing a post office. Looking at the different sentences, I thought I would never get five years – not for what I had done. I reassured myself that everything was going to be fine. I had a bit of money at that time, and I thought I would pay any fine imposed and that would be the end of it.

  The fact that the police hadn’t actually retrieved the gun from my house, as I had originally thought, and that it had been given to them by my ex-girlfriend’s two sons, made the court case a lot longer, as my barrister tried to argue that the evidence was inadmissible. In the end, the case lasted about 11 months in total, as it kept getting put back. Because these two lads had broken into my house and had given the gun to the police, they needed me to admit that it had originally been in my possession, otherwise they would have had no proof. Me, being as honest and stupid as I was, had acknowledged from the beginning that it was my gun. Looking back, if I had never admitted this when I had been first pulled over, I would never have gone to prison. My fingerprints weren’t even on the weapon.

  But the judge was having none of it. He said that it was a matter of public safety. Because my house had actually been unlocked, anyone could have got access to the gun, which made me an irresponsible person. My house was never locked, but we couldn’t really say in court that I had two big Alsatian dogs and no one would dare steal from me, as the judge would have certainly thought that I was a professional thug. He would have thought that I was someone who intimidated people, which was why I had the gun. I couldn’t really say that I didn’t need to lock my house because I had a reputation in Norwich. It was a difficult case throughout, as my barrister had to keep away from my reputation and portray me as a normal person.