One-Eyed Baz

by Barrington Patterson

  * * *

  A little while after this, I was working in a designer menswear shop. This girl walked in the shop and said, ‘You’re that guy off that TV programme.’ I went, ‘Yeah.’ She was just stalking me, man! I say that to people to tease her.

  TRACEY

  I’ll tell the true version. I worked on the doors for about 11 years and I knew a lot of Barrington’s friends, though I didn’t know him. I was one of the first doorwomen to work in the industry. I was training in the gym one day with my best pal Mikey, who’s enormous, when this guy came in who ran some of the doors in Birmingham – he came in to pay some of the lads their money.

  He said to Mikey, ‘Who’s that bird over there?’

  ‘That’s Tracey – we kind of box together.’

  ‘We need some birds on the door for an opening night in Broad Street, Birmingham.’

  So Mikey put it to me and I said, ‘Oh I don’t know – I’m a single mum, I have a six-year-old.’

  ‘No, you’ll be all right; you’ll be working with some good lads.’

  From the first night that club opened, I actually stayed working on the door for 11 years. I’ve seen it all: drunken people jumping out of hotel windows, or people held up at gunpoint. You get to a stage when you just want to get home all in one piece. I had a normal day job – I was an office manager for a security company during the day, but I was always on the door on a Friday and Saturday night.

  I knew people who knew Barrington; they used to come in the club. I’d obviously heard of him and they kept showing him on Danny Dyer’s show. A couple of days later, I went into the shop where he worked – I always used to go in there, it was a women’s shop as well at the time. I used to buy my handbags in there and I used to say to my friends, ‘They put all the attractive ones in there on the stand,’ and they used to laugh because none of them found him attractive!

  He was in there but we didn’t speak. So when I left the shop he asked Little Baz, one of the lads who were working there, who I was. Then, a couple of weeks later, I went in the shop again and we got talking.

  He always says I was stalking him! I did say, ‘You’re off of Danny Dyer,’ that’s how the conversation started.

  When I left the shop he asked Little Baz for my number and we chatted – and I actually invited him out for dinner. So I said to him, ‘I wanna meet you in the afternoon as you could be a mad axe-man for all I know!’ Little did I know, I wasn’t that far from the truth. We met in the afternoon, I took him to a nice place and I had 21 blue and white roses shipped in from Amsterdam, to give him when I met him. No one had ever really done anything for him like that on the first date.

  So he’s walking out to the car after the meal and I’m like, ‘I’ve got to go before it gets dark.’ It was the first time we’d spent any time together so I just wanted to get out of there before it got dark.

  We’ve gone out to my car and I’ve given him the roses; he’s flummoxed; gobsmacked. He’s thrown himself in the car, taken off.

  He phoned me up about half an hour later: ‘You invited me out to dinner and bought me flowers – things like that don’t happen to me.’

  After a couple of days, he always used to phone me and I never phoned him once. He was phoning me for about a week or so and one day he said to me, ‘Why don’t you ever phone me?’ I said, ‘Because if you want to speak to me you’ll phone me. I don’t feel the need to chase you.’ I know that people like him are used to being chased and I don’t do chasing.

  We met for the first time in 2008 – and then, after his 2012 court case, Barrington made his marriage proposal. Still to this day, now that we’re married, I don’t phone him from when he leaves the house to when he comes back. I’ve learned. I’ve seen all the married doormen having three or four girls in the same club, and basically it clued me up as to what men are like. In fact, working with them clued me up far too much.

  I started seeing her and here I am today. I married Tracey on Saturday, 22 September 2012; we’d been together for about four years. To be fair, she’s the only woman who has never wanted anything from me and she’s not with me because of my reputation – which is what I think happened in the past.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In Birmingham and much of Coventry, I’m still getting trailed by the police and they know I don’t like them anyway. I’m a bastard to the police: if you talk to me like I’m a cunt, I’m going to talk to you back like a cunt. Half of the police know who I am and know my reputation, so they talk to me like arseholes. But sometimes now I’ve got to hold my tongue – I’m getting old; I’m not as fit as I used to be; I’m not a fighter like I used to be.

  But still, every couple of months, I got stopped by a policeman: ‘Whose car is it?’

  ‘What do you ask me such a stupid fuckin’ question for? You know it’s my car – you know it’s registered to me. It’s not as if you don’t know who I am.’

  In one case, this particular officer was talking down to me. I said, ‘Just give me your name and number and do what you’ve gotta do.’ I took his name and number, and when he’d finished with me I went straight to the police station and reported his fucking arse to the superintendent for talking to me like a fucking arsehole.

  I’m always going to have the police on me. Say, for instance, there’s an urgent incident and the police hear my name, one car’s not going to come: it’s probably going to be one or two meat wagons with dogs. If I go to football, I’ve got to watch it: ‘Barrington’s ’ere, he’s got about 20 guys around with him.’

  There was a good firm of us a few seasons ago at Stoke. When you come off the motorway, going about two miles in towards Stoke, there’s this really quiet pub where you don’t get any football fans at all. We all landed there, having a drink, and one of the firm went into the car park to have a spliff. The next minute, about 20 to 40 police turned up: ‘You guys will have to come out of the pub.’

  We were a couple of miles away from the ground because we went offsite, hoping the police wouldn’t notice where we were. But some lads were in the car park and the police had noticed it and called for reinforcements.

  ‘We ain’t causing any trouble, we’re just having a drink!’

  It was an out-of-town pub, like a Beefeater, where families go for dinner. But the police searched my car and I had my training kit with some nunchukas in the bag.

  ‘What you doing with them?’

  ‘I use them for training, mate.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I told them that if they checked my record they’d see that I’m a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. He took the nunchukas off me and said he wasn’t arresting me, but we all had to leave and they’d escort us to the football match.

  There were around 15 to 20 cars with a police escort. The escort included vans, cars, bikes – everything! We went right through the traffic and we felt like royalty. Then we got into the ground and watched the match, but nothing went off. It was boring really, a bit of banter but that was it. The police wouldn’t let the Blues lads out and there were a couple of them sat in the Stoke end anyway.

  When we came out of the ground at the back there was a big wire mesh that separated us from Stoke fans. Some of the lads tried to climb up and pull it down, but the police were bashing everyone. Everything was going off around us but we just couldn’t get out. All we could see were pockets of Blues and Stoke.

  * * *

  Two seasons ago, I got done by the police. My mate Scouse had just come out of prison. The Blues were playing Villa and there were about 10 of us down by the train station; I came off the train from Coventry with Rupert and met the others. Scouse was smoking a spliff outside the station. I said, ‘Come on, Scouse, you can’t do this shit outside anymore.’ He’d been in jail for four years. Somebody walked past and smelled the spliff, then went and complained to a policeman. We were just standing there when six or seven police came walking over. ‘Someone has complained about somebody smoking illegal substances, so we are gonna
search you.’

  ‘All right, search me,’ I said.

  I’d gone to Coventry to pick up Rupert. He was lagging so he still had his clothes on from the night before. He was getting scared now as he was carrying something, so, all of a sudden, he tried to do a runner. The police grabbed him and threw him on the floor. They started hitting him and I thought, I can’t just stand there and watch this! So I ran over and grabbed this policeman, threw him over and pulled another one off Rupert too. Then they sprayed some gas in my face.

  I went to court and got charged with assaulting police officers. I got community service and a fine for that. I didn’t get a match ban though.

  TODD

  I know that Barrington’s got a good heart and he’s got a lot of love for his friends, but I think the day that it really dawned on me was when we were all going to the Blues/Villa game. I think it was a cup match, maybe a league game, but we all met up in New Street station and were just chilling. Someone turns round to me and says, ‘I want to go for a fag.’ I said OK, so we went outside and he lit up a joint. Soon as we’d had this joint, we moved off (we only had three drags) and the other lads moved outside to have a cigarette. So we’ve left them and, as we’re walking to get some food, all these riot police are walking past us.

  I didn’t think anything of it; I just thought they were going outside. But they’ve gone to Rupert, ‘We wanna search you,’ and Rupert really wasn’t into being searched. He just said, ‘Well I wasn’t smoking the joint, why do you wanna search me?’ Then he’s gone to walk away but all the police have jumped him, there must have been at least 15 of them. The police have got Rupert and it’s a no-win situation, but Barrington’s been with Rupert in Coventry over the years and I know how close they are, I can see the love. So Barrington’s just run at the police and held his arms out as wide as he could. He went to take them all down just for Rupert and they gassed him, they were cuffing him and I was thinking, We’re supposed to be having it with Villa. They took them all down the station but, when they got there, because Barrington’s so high profile, one of the police with the pips on his shoulder said, ‘What’s going on?’ Barrington explained to him: ‘I didn’t like the way they were handling my mate and they’ve arrested me.’

  The following season, in 2010, I was walking out of the Villa/Blues match towards Digbeth. I was in the box that day and, as I left, I rang the lads to see where they were. I came out and all the Blues were stood there chanting shit at the Villa. I thought I’d stand there and have a little singsong with the boys and, before you knew it, I was on the front line. The police were shouting, ‘Move back, move back!’ I turned around to move and they started bashing me with their telescopic truncheons!

  I thought, What the fuck’s going on ’ere? and I kicked a fucking policeman.

  RUPERT & TODD

  Todd: Because we were meeting Barrington, we were between the police line and the rest of the Blues. They were all arguing with the police and chucking stuff; we were in the middle but we were walking up to the car. We went in a shop; when we came out, the police came up to us and tried to push us up the road and into the other Blues. We were like, ‘Fuck off!’ basically. But one of them came at Barrington one time too many, with a dog as well, so me and Rupert sort of backed away. The dog didn’t seem to bother him as he was too busy, but the next thing is they’ve pushed him and Barrington’s pushed back. Then they were on him like flies.

  Rupert: They basically dragged him round by the police vans so that no one could see what was going on.

  Todd: I got a bit of footage that we gave to his solicitors but I don’t know what good it ended up doing, because there were all these police cars and vans screening it anyway and Barrington was down on the floor.

  I rang Rupert to check where they were and he said they were down by the island at The Watering Hole. I had to take him back to Coventry so I walked down there as Rupert and that lot were coming out of the pub. I said, ‘Come on, Rupert, let’s get the fuck out of ’ere.’ I was walking along, talking on my phone, when the next minute this policeman comes walking over with a police dog and says, ‘Move!’

  ‘All right, mate! I’m going!’

  We were outside a West Indian fruit shop. This other policeman came sprinting across the road with a shield and BANG! ‘You ain’t on Deadliest Men now, are ya?’ He spanked me right in the mouth with the shield.

  I said, ‘Fuck you, ya cunt!’

  So I’ve stood there in a fighting stance and I don’t know where all these police came from, they just jumped on me. They started kicking me, punching me, whacking me with truncheons. All the men have surrounded me and then all the wagons have come round, so obviously nobody can get it on their mobile phones.

  The first copper jumped on me and clattered me to fuck. I’ve had some fights in my time but this time I was fucking scared – I couldn’t just curl up in a ball. They put the handcuffs on one hand but I couldn’t move the other one. There were about four fucking guys on me and I’d landed on my front. ‘Get your fucking hand out!’ they shouted.

  They’re all on top of me and I’m on my back. One of them is trying to shove a fucking truncheon up my arse and I’m shouting, ‘Ahhhhh!’

  Then they picked me up and threw me in the van, shouting, ‘Fucking Zulu nigger!’

  ‘Yeah, fuck you! I shagged your missus last night.’

  I thought I was going to get a clout in the mouth, as I was calling them fat bastards and all that. The worst thing of all was there was a black officer in the meat wagon. I turned around to this nigger and said, ‘Oi, you fucking coconut! You’re just sitting there while they crack all these nigger jokes!’ He just turned around and looked the opposite way. Obviously he wouldn’t say a thing or he’d look out of place.

  It was about an hour till they took me to the police station. I got in front of the sergeant and he told me to empty my pockets. ‘I’m gonna have to search you now.’ Then he grabbed hold of my bollocks! So I grabbed him and threw him against the fucking wall.

  ‘Barrington, calm down, this is all on camera!’ said one of my four mates that they’d arrested, trying to cool it down.

  ‘I’ve just been kicked in the fucking bollocks, he’s tried grabbing my balls and that cunt was trying to ram the fucking truncheon up my arse!’

  They arrested me and put me in a cell. The sergeant wasn’t that meaty, he was a fucking prick; he was probably in the army and got bullied, or the type of person who got bullied at school.

  A couple of hours later, I started coughing and blood was coming up. I couldn’t go to the toilet until 8.30am the next morning, but I had pains in my stomach and was vomiting blood – so I rang the buzzer. The doctor came to see me and I got about a day and a half in the hospital. I had a catheter put up my fucking dick because I couldn’t piss.

  I came out the next day and went to Lloyd’s House, the police headquarters. I tried to put in a complaint but they told me they couldn’t deal with it until the case had come to court. So, at the court case, I was told I was banned from any match until the case had finished – it went on for months and months. A year and a half later, the case went to crown court. The worst thing is that the police knew, from two previous crown court appearances, that they never had anything on me. They had nothing from day fucking one!

  The police said in court, ‘He was in a fighting stance and he was fighting us.’

  I knew damn well that, when the police went to a high-profile match like the Blues/Villa game, a lot of them had little handheld camcorders. So, if I’m fighting police rather than defending myself – come on, there has to be someone there with a video of it. Where’s the evidence that I was fighting the police? There was no evidence at all. There were six policemen and no independent witnesses, and it didn’t even go to the day. My barrister got together with their prosecutor and said, ‘You’ve got nothing on him and you’re going to have to give up the charge.’

  I turned around to the policeman in charge on the spot: ‘Fuck
you, you cunt! Better luck next time.’

  And a couple of weeks later, I went down to police headquarters – because now I wanted to press charges against all these fucking policemen. They didn’t want to fucking know!

  * * *

  Coventry played Millwall a couple of seasons ago and I thought, I want to go to this match! I went down there with about 10 guys; we’re having it off, but by the time I look round everyone’s run off. Just like when Coventry played Villa: I went down there, had it off outside with the Villa firm – and then they’ve all run off and left me.

  But, in September 2011, a firm of us flew to Croatia for the Maribor (Slovenia) v Birmingham City game. We hired a car and me and my good pal Terry spent a night in Croatia before crossing the border for the Maribor game. Now it’s no secret that they can be a racist firm. Everywhere I went I was getting stared at; their Old Bill were growling at me.

  To be fair though, we did take over the place.

  We won the game so we were well pleased. Terry had been talking on the Internet for a while with the top geezer from the Dynamo Zagreb firm, Bad Blue Boys; they invited us to go and watch a game on their turf. I was well up for a bit of that but my pal was a bit more cautious. We met up with them though after the Maribor game, when we drove back into Zagreb and were treated like kings: VIP treatment in their nightclub, it was proper.

  It was also full of racists. I was only the second black guy ever to set foot on their terraces. (The other guy wasn’t invited so he got bashed.) There were thousands of white heads and my black head in the middle of them. It was funny; they were a cracking bunch of lads and I still keep in contact with them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  About a year after the police jumped me outside the Blues/Villa game, this guy I’d known for about 30- odd years came over and said to me, ‘Baz, I’ve had a grow [some cannabis plants] go missing. I reckon the guy down the shop has robbed it. I went down the shop about two days beforehand and there’s about three big heavies there. Please go down with me just in case the lumps are there. I need to talk with this guy.’