Show No Fear Redux: Bouncers Diary

by Bill Carson

  “I'm coming in – who’s going to stop me?” Hic! Burp! Fart!

  I turned and pointed in the direction of Paul.

  “He will,” I said.

  “HIM! He should be in a fucking cage.”

  He marched up the high street mumbling and shaking his head and I never saw him again.

  Paul was asked to take over the door at another venue and he was replaced by a new member of the team: a tall, fair-haired good-looking young fella, with an eye for the ladies. He was called Sean. We had a slight problem with him, though. He was smaller in stature than Pete and I, and so when we had to ask someone to leave, they almost always turned around and vented their anger against him. Which was a big mistake because he could handle himself well, and coupled with his hot temper that made him quite a handful.

  And so there were Pete and Sean and I, and it stayed that way for just over a year.

  One of the good things about having Sean with us was that he had a motor. Pete and I were used to getting the night bus, that bus was murder – everyone was pissed, belching, farting and fighting… and the blokes were just as bad. There was also a good chance you would be sitting next to the arsehole you had clumped and thrown out earlier that night.

  It was a nice cool spring Saturday evening. Everything was quiet and we decided to have a cup of tea. It was Pete’s turn to go next door to get our usual free coffee or tea from the burger bar. The manager used to sort us out with free drinks, and towards the end of the evening she would often bring us out something to eat. I’d helped her out one night when she was having some trouble with a couple of young lads who’d decided to start to smash the place up. They did employ a security guard, a young Indian fella, and some nights we spent as much time in the restaurant helping him as we did in the club. He was a nice guy and so we couldn’t just stand by and leave him in the shit.

  Sean was inside doing an internal patrol I was on the main entrance. Pete arrived back with two coffees and I had my usual cup of strong tea. Pete went in to give Sean a shout, leaving the drinks on the window ledge.

  After about three or four minutes there was no sign of either of them. I stood on tiptoes and looked over towards the dance floor. The smoke machine was making it difficult to see clearly but I could just about make out Pete’s head moving around: he was pretty tall and stood out above the crowd. There was tension in the air. I knew something was wrong, and I got the feeling things were about to kick off. I left the front door and shoved my way through the crowd, and as I did so I could hear the tell-tale signs of trouble. Glasses and bottles were being smashed and I could hear shouts and high pitched screams above the music.

  About twenty feet away, Pete was being confronted by two young fellas who were both armed with beer bottles. He quickly turned and grabbed one guy, dislodged the bottle from his hand and threw him to the floor. Sean was next to him, exchanging punches with some other fella. Sean quickly spun on his heels and delivered a perfectly timed roundhouse kick to the bloke who was about to bounce a bottle off the back of Pete’s skull. The well-timed kick connected on the guy’s nose and the immediate torrent of blood from his nostrils looked black under the strange lights. Sean then continued to swap punches with the other fella. Just as I got there, he drew back his right hand and sent it smashing into the guy’s jaw.

  Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I got that familiar tingling sensation in the pit of my stomach, followed by icy cold shots of adrenaline racing through my veins. A pint glass came flying out of the crowd. I ducked just in time and it missed my head by inches. It smashed against the wall in front of me, sending shards of glass into the air. As it exploded, the fragments of glass looked like shimmering snowflakes in the strobe lighting. I didn’t see who threw it, but sometimes, when things are kicking off, other people who are unconnected decide to join in for fun.

  Sean’s right hand punch was now becoming a regular visitor to the guy’s face, delivering stinging, painful blows. This fella was getting a right pasting. He must have received at least half a dozen unanswered punches. I moved in on him and slipped the noose around him. As soon as I locked the hold on, he had no chance. He was game, though, and his right hand was searching for a bottle to use against me. He picked up a beer bottle but with a quick squeeze on his carotid arteries the bottle fell to the floor… he was history.

  While dragging him backwards through the crowd, I managed to manoeuvre him over to the main entrance. Sean was right beside me and Pete was now back with us. I turned and faced the door and pushed him outside into the street. Just as I released the hold on him, Sean delivered a perfect right cross which connected on the guy’s jaw. The impact sent a thin stream of blood and snot from his mouth and nostrils, which splattered on the wall next to me.

  Once we were outside, I could see the damage that had been inflicted on him. One side of his face hadn’t been touched, while the other side was damaged past recognition, red and swollen, and one eye was completely shut from Sean’s relentless accurate blows. He was a mess and wouldn’t be entering any beauty contests for a while. I went into the gents to clean the blood from my jacket. When I’d put the guy into the strangle hold, a fair amount of claret from a bad cut over his eye had leaked out onto my sleeve. Blood is quite a stubborn substance to remove as it’s very sticky so it took me a while to clean up.

  Ten minutes later I made my way back through the crowd to the front doors to find two police cars and an ambulance on the scene. The three guys who had been fighting were taken to the nearest casualty department. The one that Pete had thrown to the floor had landed heavily on his shoulder, and one of them had a bad nosebleed, courtesy of Sean’s boot. The other guy that Sean was dealing with was definitely in need of medical attention. Sean was also taken away, not in the ambulance but in a police car. He was arrested and taken to the nearest cell for the night.

  Now where‘s that cup of tea? I thought.

  Blessed are the peacemakers.

  We went down to the police station after we closed up to see if they were going to release him, but they refused to let him out. However, the charges were dropped next day and he was released from custody. The thing that saved him was that just before the police arrived, he’d purposely head-butted the wall a couple of times and, in doing so, had put a lump over his eye. He told the police that he’d been struck first and was only defending himself and that he was outnumbered. He was lucky as he’d done one of the guys some real damage.

  This is a rough game. Some people do not respond to reason: the only thing they understand is violence and the threat of violence. It’s the only thing they seem to respect. It is a sad but absolute fact. That is what happened in this case – the people involved here were a very belligerent group of young men who’d had way too much to drink and would not respond to reason. Instead they decided to use violence against us.

  Muppets + drink + drugs + violence = ambulance.

  Believe it or not, some people’s idea of a good Saturday night out revolves around going to the clubs and pubs to fight; to take on all-comers, including the ultimate test – the doormen. Why? I don't know. I have never understood it. Maybe they have to prove something to themselves, but all I know is that we were prepared to take on anyone if necessary. And that’s the way it was. I don’t like violence but you can’t talk to some people.

  Prepared is the key word. I was always ready for them. I trained hard and practised as much as I could, and that was my edge over my attackers. Without the training you are no better than the person you are dealing with. If you are not prepared, you will probably lose.

  The more fights you observe or become involved in, the easier fighting becomes. It becomes easier because you can read the signs which give you opportunity to anticipate what’s going to happen and then you are able to react accordingly. You react without thought sometimes. It’s like the instinctive save by a goalkeeper: he doesn’t think about what to do, he just does it.

  It is what the Japanese refer to as mushin, which
means ‘no mind’. Like old Musashi says, you must strike from the void. But to get to the stage where you can react correctly without thought takes years of dedicated training, using your whole body as a weapon when delivering your counter-attack. To move and parry your opponent’s blow, then return your own devastating crushing blow in one movement. That to me is the essence of karate. If you were to think too much about what you were doing, it wouldn’t work.

  When you seek it, you cannot find it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE FAIRER SEX

  It’s not all doom and gloom. We had a few good laughs as well. I used to go to the office at Ealing to collect the wages for the lads on Saturday evenings so I was sometimes a little late arriving at the club.

  This particular Saturday had seen the defeat of the South African rugby team at Twickenham. The club was full of rugby supporters of both sides. One of them had decided to bring in off the street the dirtiest old tramp they could find. They sat him in the middle of the dance area where he was given a steady supply of ale. His hair was grey and matted, one side sticking up and the other side as flat as a pancake. He was wearing a vest that had taken on a life all of its own – it was covered in some very dodgy looking stains. He was only a little fella but the jacket he had on was easily four sizes too big and the trousers were pulled right up to his chest. Basically, when he moved, the suit followed a moment later.

  He’d got to go. I put my gloves on and I got one of the other doormen to reluctantly help me to escort the old fella outside. As we were dragging him through the crowd, he started to respond to the shouts and jeers from the rugby supporters who were finding the whole scenario quite amusing. He started to struggle, and as we were passing a couple of attractive young women seated by the door, he decided to dig his heels in. A scuffle began and the timing could not have been better: as if on cue his trousers dropped to his ankles. He was bollock naked and he treated the two young women to a full frontal. A loud cheer went up and the whole place erupted into laughter.

  We eventually managed to throw him out and watched him as he zig-zagged up the high street still holding a bottle of beer, with trousers at half-mast, singing away without a care in the world. Brilliant, what a way to start the evening, I thought.

  Another humorous situation occurred with the return of a peculiar woman whom we had barred a couple of weeks earlier. She was very drunk that night and had become really abusive, so she was asked to leave the premises. It was not my fault that as she went through the door she tripped and fell on her fat arse. She thought I’d tripped her up, and started blaming everyone for her embarrassing predicament. She then picked herself up and continued her tirade of foul language in our direction.

  She’d fallen over because she was blind drunk. Perhaps I’m a bit old fashioned, but to see a young woman in that state makes a very depressing spectacle. Initially you find it mildly amusing, but when you think about it, it’s pretty sad really. Unfortunately it is a common occurrence in this game and dealing with them is all part of the job.

  It was getting near to last orders and we still had a small queue at the front doors when this old trout turns up. She walks to straight to the front, much to the annoyance of a big fella who was next in line. She was ranting and raving and demanding to be allowed in. I was called to deal with the situation. I told her she had no chance and to go away, or words to that effect. It was the same woman who was on her arse the previous Saturday.

  “Can I go in now, mate?” the fat fella said.

  Before I could say a word, she screamed at him like a maniac and told him to fuck off at the top of her voice, and then she took a huge swing at him. He luckily managed to avoid her telegraphed attack. Here we go, round one, I thought as the bell for last orders is rung. A red mist must have descended over this normally peaceful creature: he wasn’t worried about being attacked by this lunatic, but, because of her, the frightening prospect of not getting in to savour the last few pints of his Saturday night out was becoming a reality.

  It was all too much for him and a peach of a right hand punch caught her flush on the chin. Mike Tyson would have been proud of that one. She went down, then got up to stagger down the road, holding her chin. Not too much to say now, I thought.

  I told fatty off for what he’d done. He was very apologetic and so I let him in to purchase his well-deserved pint.

  To the victor the spoils.

  Don’t get me wrong, I am not condoning violence against a woman at all, but this person wouldn’t respond to normal requests. She was ruining everyone’s night out and threatening us all at the door. She used so many expletives she actually ran out of them and then tried to use violence because she could not get her own way: just the sort of girl you could bring home to meet your mother.

  She was drunk, violent and foul and got what she deserved. The fairer sex? My arse.

  Peter, Sean and I were standing outside the front doors. The usual crowds were all filing past when I noticed a young woman walk by. She stopped suddenly, turned around and came back in our direction and then entered the bar. About thirty seconds later, we heard screams and that tell-tale sound of breaking glass. The alarm was sounded and we rushed in to find that the girl who’d just walked in had smashed a pint glass over some guy’s head.

  Pete was the first one inside and he grabbed the young woman. She was going ballistic, shouting and screaming at some fella who was sitting by the window. Pete put her in the strangle hold – after all, this is the nineties, equality and all that. And so she was thrown out like any other violent person. Male or female, they were all treated the same. As she went past me, I noticed that she had a large cut on her right hand. As she was released from the hold, she sprinted up the road and disappeared. Actually, we should have kept her there in case the guy wanted to press charges, but I’m glad we didn’t in the end because he was a right little wanker. Sean was busy throwing the guy who’d been attacked out of the door. He had a couple of nasty cuts to his scalp and blood was trickling down his forehead. He also had some small shards of glass sticking out of the top of his head.

  The guy wasn’t too happy about being thrown out and tried to go back into the bar. Sean grabbed him by the collar of his shirt from behind and yanked him off the step and back outside. He must have pulled the guy really hard because the whole back of the guy’s shirt came away in Sean’s hands. It was like something out of a Laurel and Hardy film. He turned around in disbelief and pointed at Sean and said, “You owe me a fucking new shirt, you bastard.”

  We don’t generally respond to well to that kind of behaviour. Sean called him a stupid prick and laughed in his face. The guy was standing outside with pieces of glass in his head, blood trickling down his face and wearing half a shirt, and also the girl he’d been with in the bar had done a runner. I would imagine he’d had better nights out.

  What happened was that this fella’s regular girlfriend had seen him through the window with another young woman as she walked past. She’d entered the club and smashed a pint pot over his head. He’d taken a swing at her and the rest you know.

  Young love, all together now – ahhhhhhh.

  Two weeks on

  Pete and I turned up as usual one night but Sean had been replaced by the guy who was the regular doorman at that horrible little place down in Chav Town. I thought it was a bit odd, as the office would normally tell me if there were to be any changes. So, we’d got this Kiwi fella and Sean had gone down to Chav Town with Alex and Garry, the two doormen I mentioned earlier.

  We’d only been there about half an hour when the alarm went off. As soon as you heard that, you got an instant, massive hit of adrenaline surging through you. Pete and I went in to find two groups of young fellas, about eight or nine of them in total, involved in a mass brawl. Two guys were rolling around on the floor punching, nutting and kicking each other, while the rest of them were engaged in one big scrap where boots and fists were being used in a high speed frantic tangle of bodies. Chris, the Kiwi doorma
n, had got two of the guys in headlocks and was pulling them towards to exit. Pete and I quickly got to grips with the situation, administering strangle holds all round. We separated the fighters and ejected the ringleaders. I was surprised that there weren’t any serious injuries to deal with as they were going for it good style.

  As things calmed down I went back to the front door and I noticed that my boots had a splattering of blood across them. We then noticed a thin red trail of blood leading from the front doors of the club. It went along the pavement and up the main street. At the top of the road were a couple of the lads we had thrown out: they were sitting on the pavement and one was holding the side of his head. As I got a bit closer, I could see blood seeping out between his fingers and running down the side of his face and neck. I asked him if I could see the injury, and as he took his hand away I could see that he had been given a Van Gogh – the guy’s ear had almost been sliced in two.