At this point, the pissed-up Millwall yob got up to confront me, just as the driver pulled off. It was probably 6 by 4 in there and the copper put his foot down, which left Millwall so wasted that he fell to the floor, spewing up all over the van. ‘Get me up, get me up,’ he whined like a baby as we all moved our legs out of the way. There wasn’t much room in the first place but now you couldn’t move for puke, most of which he was now rolling around in. ‘I need a piss, I need a piss,’ he shouted. That would be the next lovely stench coming our way.
The West Brom fan had managed to get his hands round the front – god knows how. He still had his plasticuffs on.
‘Pull my shorts down, pull my shorts down. I need to have a piss,’ Millwall roared.
‘You’re not having a fucking piss in here,’ I pulled rank.
‘I’m not fucking doing that,’ said the Brummie.
Then he delivered his ultimate death sentence. ‘You don’t know who I fucking am,’ he screamed. ‘I’m fucking Millwall and I was one of the boys who killed that bloke outside the fucking station.’
Jesus, what a dickhead, but bingo, and Simon was filming. What a stupid thing to say – a live confession of an unsolved stabbing. That’s what we were here for. If I had thought about it, I really would have tried to get nicked before, and worked the show from the inside. The van was clearly where crooks put their medals on the table. I was, after all, the first to be arrested, just as I’d been warned at Heathrow – I stood out as a father figure-cum-ringleader, twice the age of many of the new breed of thugs. The downside to that tactic, though, was having to show your BBC hand. It wasn’t something that had even come up in discussion, because Simon and I backed ourselves as experienced operators – it wasn’t even a consideration.
Then Millwall pissed himself. We had no choice but to lift our feet again, while he found it hysterical … for about two seconds – then the joke was on him.
The driver slammed on the brake, sending Fatboy flying from the back all through the piss and the vomit to the front of the van down the middle area between us all, and back again to the rear of the van.
Outside stood the camp. This was a specially constructed detention centre, fenced off from the main police station just for the World Cup hooligans – or, as most people called them, the English. Simon and I gave each other the look – now wasn’t the time to say we were undercover. To do so at anything other than the last possible minute meant that we were failures in our field. We were along for the ride now, and had to stay in character, safe in the knowledge that we had done nothing. We would get what we could until our gear was seized, and then whip out our press cards. My only concern was that I wasn’t sure if we were getting head shots or filming somewhere near the midriff.
There was an inevitable pause before the doors opened. Fatboy from Millwall was left on his own. Getting out without slipping in the piss and the chunder was hard enough for us.
Dozens of English fans were already lined up outside. I just thought this was Colditz all over again, and I was waiting for The Great Escape to pipe up. I scanned the line to see if there was anyone I knew, or anyone I knew I had filmed. This was not the time to be recognised.
Amid the shouting and ranting, I had a quiet word with Simon. ‘Stay together, and let’s choose our moment to show them our hand,’ I said calmly.
He told me he still had all the kit. We were almost definitely still rolling.
The Germans ran a tight ship – this time, some three weeks into the tournament, they were ready. We had been quickly outflanked by German police, cutting us off from everything, breaking into the cordon and nabbing the perceived ringleaders. I clearly looked the part. We were playing it by ear, drunk enough to play drunk but sober enough to be aware. Drinking ten or so pints a day had become routine.
I tried to take charge to show the lads that Craig Summers had been here before. ‘Don’t play with the plasticuffs,’ I told them. ‘That’s what they’re there for. The more you struggle with them, the more they tighten. Stay calm and see what happens.’
It would help if Simon and I weren’t forced to separate.
We were marshalled into a hut. It was like joining the military a quarter of a century ago.
‘Stand next to him, stand next to him,’ they bellowed. ‘Name – do you have any identification?’ It fulfilled a classic German stereotype.
There was a row of German officers stood in front of us. Behind them, one of the Old Bill was observing. I knew this was now the moment.
‘Can I have a word?’ I said to the bobby.
‘Why, what’s the problem?’ he replied. I got the sense that his presence there was just a pacifier to any racial tension that might spill over.
‘Can I have a quiet word?’ I asked again. I had one eye on Simon and the other on the two guys putting all the personal stuff into bags.
‘What is it?’ he said standing right under my nose.
‘We work for the BBC,’ I declared. I explained how we were undercover filming and had got caught up in it; our friendly copper leant over to the German who was dealing with me and whispered in his ear.
Two more thugs were sent to a cell, and he stopped anyone else coming into the room.
‘Look, I’ve got a covert camera, spare batteries, and loads of other bits and pieces in our pockets,’ I explained.
‘Take the camera kit off and put everything else in this bag now,’ he ordered. He took the lot, including our press cards. And then processed us as hooligans.
We were sent outside again to re-join the queue together, waiting to be escorted to rows and rows of cells. ‘Engerland, Engerland, Engerland,’ was all I could hear. Doors were slamming all around us. The yob element still hadn’t got the message.
I was thrown into one cell, Simon into another. Everybody had to take their shoes off. I knew it was a waiting game – I had to trust the English copper. I was confident that I hadn’t been sold down the Rhine here. In the cell were two others from the van and two more thugs. Still they sung. I sat there on the wooden bench.
‘There’s no point ranting and raving,’ I told them. ‘It ain’t gonna get you anywhere.’
And they saw sense and shut the fuck up. That didn’t last long. The door flung open. My worst nightmare. It was Millwall.
‘All right West Ham, all right.’ He was in my face. ‘Engerland, Engerland, you fucking German bastards you can’t keep me. You fucking German cunts, you can’t keep me. I’m Millwall, I’m hard.’ He was banging on the door. No, not again. I knew someone would knock him out in a minute.
‘Listen, you wanker, sit down and shut up,’ I glared at him. ‘You stink of piss and you stink of sick. Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.’
As I was giving him the dressing-down, two massive German coppers stormed our cell, slammed me up against the wall, whacked the plasticuffs back on me, dragged me out, and banged the door shut.
‘Stay with it West Ham, we’re England.’ Millwall was back on his high horse.
I would have pissed myself if I’d been watching, but I was in it. This was me, hard man Summers being dragged out. I’d thought I was sorted but I wasn’t sure now.
I didn’t panic but I double-checked my memory. Did I chuck beer on anyone in the square? Did I throw a chair or go for anyone? They didn’t hold back in roughing me up, frogmarching me down the corridor. There was no gently-out-you-come; the cuffs were dead tight and my arms were up against my back.
‘Leave him alone, you German cunts,’ the new arrivals shouted. ‘He’s English.’
I was taken to an interrogation room. Then, it all became clear. I could see the English policeman sitting there.
‘Release the plasticuffs,’ he said when he saw me. This was a game. ‘I’m really sorry about that but if you are an undercover BBC reporter then I don’t want to blow your cover,’ he explained.
‘You know what, mate?’ I replied. ‘That was absolutely brilliant.’
I loved that. I was on the ins
ide with the best access possible and now I had got my own country’s police force playing the part, too. There was still some work to be done, though.
‘I’m going to be dead straight now,’ he levelled. ‘The head of Stuttgart police is going through all the footage in the square and if I see you or your mate doing anything untoward then you are nicked as a football hooligan.’
I couldn’t be sure of what was on the CCTV. The jury was still out.
Next thing, the door flung open. It was Simon, and they went through exactly the same drill. I loved it, but I knew we were still in for a bit.
‘Unfortunately, you’ve got two choices here,’ he went on. ‘I can put you back in with the others and then I can pull you out and put you in a cell by yourselves. I don’t know how long this is going to take, if you can bear with me.’ Then the plasticuffs went back on. There was playing the part and playing the fucking part.
So, the head of Stuttgart police was now trawling his own network looking for Simon and me. If he was that bloody good, why didn’t he just seize all our footage – we had a live confession of a stabbing on the tapes. That was a start.
I was thrown back in the cell.
‘What happened, mate, what happened?’ My cellmates couldn’t wait to see me.
‘They fucking interviewed me,’ I egged them on. ‘They reckon they’ve got me on film punching some Kraut.’
‘Fucking brilliant.’ Millwall was loving it, kicking the door with his bare feet. ‘We’re English, we’ve fucking done them,’ he shouted.
From the tiniest of cells, they were off again. ‘Ten German Bombers’ was out once more, and everyone was joining in. Then came ‘I’d rather be a Paki than a Kraut’. As much as I loved the gig, I didn’t want a night of this.
Three long hours later, almost when I had given up, the door flew open again. Here came the heavies once more. Ridiculously, Millwall, thinking he had sobered up, tried to grab onto me to keep me in the cell. The Germans palmed him away, sending him falling on his arse. The door slammed once more – this time I was on the right side of it. There was nobody in the corridor. Except the British cop.
‘Here’s a bottle of water,’ he offered. ‘I’m putting you in a cell down the corridor. Your mate will be with you in a minute.’
‘Can we have our phones?’ I asked.
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He seemed to be roaming free on German soil.
By the time Simon turned up, he had his mobile, which was a sure sign that they believed us. Why would you give comms to someone you were holding? The signal wasn’t great but we got hold of Jeff back at base by text. He already knew – News had told him, because the overt team had seen us going in. We texted back to tell them not to charge in with a BBC card because I felt we would be out soon.
After an hour or so more, the British cop came in to say they had cleared the footage and returned all our stuff to us. ‘I can’t let you go at the moment,’ he said. ‘We’ve so much going on, I can’t get you into town.’
I told him we were happy to walk, knowing we would be picked up, but he asked us to wait, possibly until 06.00.
After he had gone, we inspected the bag. The twat had lied. None of our tapes had been removed from it, let alone dubbed off. Yes, it was brilliant that there was an English copper there because a German might have just treated us as one of the mob but equally he had done nothing. The Germans could all speak the lingo but you couldn’t know that they could read your tone. Like me, he was loving living the part.
At 05.30, he was back. There was nobody around. ‘I’ve got you guys a vehicle.’ He showed us a caged dog van and apologised. ‘That’s about it, I’m afraid.’
We couldn’t care less. Nobody saw us leave and I think that’s the reason why we went at that time. He could have been a right dick and confiscated everything but I felt he played a blinder. We were dropped at the train station, and both Simon and I looked at each other and chuckled.
‘I’m fucking knackered,’ I said.
‘So am I,’ my mate replied.
I phoned Jeff and told him we were on our way and going to hit the sack; I also rang home and Sue told me I was a bit too old for all this. She was probably right.
Who knows whatever became of Millwall? This was as close as I would ever come to walking the line and crossing it – where I nearly blew a mission for being too good at it. It was the dream job, and my worlds had merged. Asked to be an undercover reporter at a major football tournament that the world was watching, I myself was uncovered, watched by my own camera crew! I was never in any risk, but I couldn’t live anything other than dangerously.
And of course, a few days later, England slumped out of the tournament as they always did.
Motty had been right after all – his opening words in the match against Portugal among his best and among his final as a commentator on England at major tournaments. ‘The gateway to a World Cup semi-final or to World Cup oblivion.’
Oblivion it was. Except, of course, for those who had gained notoriety through our footage. Praised as the best fans in the world, we were now once again dubbed the ‘English disease’ – a culture of excess taken beyond the level of acceptable behaviour. One Sunday newspaper had reported at the time that two undercover BBC reporters had been arrested. There was no shame in that, and the obvious conclusions to draw are either that the British cop took cash to leak the story (given that he played a blinder, I dismiss that), or that among the mob were other undercover reporters too.
What if Millwall worked for the News of the World? What if all six of us in the van had been press? How stupid would that be? I doubt very much that anyone other than our own recognised us being thrown into the van.
The best was yet to come. When the Panorama show aired, my phone bleeped into action. It was August, well over a month after our pathetic exit. The show had been massively re-jigged. I had given them over 130 hour-long tapes.
‘You bastard. You fucking stitched me up,’ it read. ‘I’ll fucking have you.’ It was Ian, the Chelsea fan.
‘Hahaha, some you win, some you lose,’ I replied.
‘If you ever come to Chelsea, I know who you are and I’ll make sure we do you,’ he bragged.
I felt the chances of bumping into him were slim. ‘Bring it on,’ I bashed into my phone.
I laughed when he sent me his final text, and it just made me even more determined. Where there was danger, there was a story and where there was a story, I was drawn to it.
‘You’re dead.’
I never heard from him again.
HARRY’S GAME
Had the Corporation learned the lessons from what happened to Kate, or was that all about box-ticking? It was true that if you sent individuals into the most dangerous places in the world, some of them wouldn’t come back, however thorough your risk assessments were – that was the lottery of life and the Achilles’ heel of journalism. To get to the heart of the story, sometimes you become it – the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On 14 March 2007 the call came for me to get my backside out of Baghdad and into Jerusalem. Alan Johnston, our correspondent, had been kidnapped. I knew instantly at the start of the conversation that the words ‘Alan’ and ‘kidnapped’ were coming – my military sixth sense had already tuned in.
My mind rewound to the previous Christmas – Alan and I had shot a video diary on the whole security situation in Gaza. He was never blasé about what was a very real threat, but he was also well respected by each of the factions in the region. The Beeb were shitting themselves – this could be Kate Take Two but much more prolonged. There was no bringing Kate back. Who knew how long Alan would be missing? Every day would be a reminder. Nobody in our industry had ever forgotten how long John McCarthy had been gone for.
When the videos came through of Alan in a suicide bomber’s vest, even I thought the game was up and he would be the next body I would bring home. We were definitely in a different era now, and the BBC no longer had a
protective coat around it. If anything, the reverse was true: such an organisation was a magnet for nutters around the world, for whom the price of death was the ticket to paradise. In this case, Muslim extremists with links to al Qaeda, led by a local bully, Mumtaz Durmush, were pulling the trigger. Except they didn’t.
A second video came and on 18 June a deadline passed. I felt that was the key moment. The more demands you issued, the more ultimately came and went. Every time that happened, you left them with fewer cards to play. The BBC decided that no correspondents would live in Gaza from now on, and armoured cars would be the vehicle of choice. Again, just like Mogadishu, any stories in the region had to be cleared by the head of Newsgathering and the High Risk Team. The John Simpson days of barging into places saying, ‘I’m from the BBC’, were fading fast – unless, of course, you were John himself! There had been too many rude awakenings in recent years.
Alan was released on Wednesday 4 July, some 114 days after he was kidnapped. 200,000 people had signed an online petition. Hamas, with whom the BBC had kept up a dialogue, had played a crucial role. I had only spent three weeks out there: very soon, it had become clear that nothing was moving fast. I didn’t negotiate Alan’s exit, nor did I hang around for the circus of vigils that followed as the world and his wife wanted to be seen with him. I had already been called home to play Harry’s Game.
‘We’ve got a breakfast meeting tomorrow with Paul and Dom,’ Newsgathering had said.
Paul and Dom made their living sniffing out stories around the world and pitching them to major broadcasters. Craig Oliver, the News editor of the Ten, was also coming; Sangita Myska was mooted as the presenter. I was asked to suss out whether these guys were genuine and if the story had legs – we were going to buy children in Bulgaria.
My first instinct was no. I felt these two were a fly-by-night crew who wanted a quick hit and a fast buck. I sat there and said nothing. Then Craig asked me what I thought.
‘Sangita going in is wrong. She needs to be part of a couple. Sangita buying a baby in the underworld doesn’t look right. I need to play her husband,’ I said, shocking them. I felt Sangita thought I was trying to block it, but they just hadn’t thought it through. ‘I will be the elder husband, who has married a young Indian girl totally against the rules. I’ve got fingers in pies everywhere but I’m a bit of a dodgy East End car dealer. Obviously I had a bit of a record.’
Bodyguard Page 12