Bouncers and Bodyguards (3 page)

My journey in life has forever tested me. It still does, even today. I’ve survived it all: multiple stab wounds (all in my back), guns to my head (Old Bill and villains), serious brutality. Read my books – it’s all in there. Although I am now a changed man and deserve any act of violence, it’s best you don’t test me. It’s so much nicer to be nice. But if you really want to test me, let’s go into the darkness alone and ‘discuss’ it!

Doormen, I salute you!

Charlie Bronson was born in Aberystwyth on 6 December 1952. His real name is Michael Peterson. Bronson states on his website that contrary to reports frequently made in the media, his name was changed by his fight promoter in 1987 and was not a choice he made in relation to the screen actor Charles Bronson.

Initially jailed in 1974 for robbery, Bronson has been in prison more or less his entire life since the age of nineteen, and he has spent only three months out of custody. Due to repeated attacks on prison staff and inmates, including a number of hostage situations and rooftop protests, Bronson has spent most of his prison life in solitary confinement. In 1999, a special prison unit was set up for Bronson and two other violent prisoners to reduce the risk they posed to staff and other prisoners. In 2000, he received a discretionary life sentence for a hostage-taking incident. In 2001, Bronson married Saira Rehman, but the marriage didn’t last.

Bronson also supports a charity called Zöe’s Place Baby Hospice in Liverpool (
www.zoes-place.org.uk
). They do amazing work with severely disabled babies, so if you have some spare cash, send it to them – it will make Charlie very happy.

For the past ten years, Charlie’s art has occupied him and is now the main part of his life. His artwork is unique and is sent to all corners of the world. Bronson has also published ten books and has received numerous prizes for his poetry. His books include
Solitary Fitness
;
Heroes and Villains: The Good, the Mad, the Bad and the Ugly
;
Insanity: My Mad Life
;
The Krays and Me
;
Legends
;
Silent Scream
;
Bronson
;
The Charles Bronson Book of Poems: Birdman Opens His Mind Book 1
; and
The Charles Bronson Cartoon Autobiography: Hostage of My Past
.

You can contact Charlie at
www.freebronson.co.uk

I
am 46 years old and was born in Moss Side, Manchester. I was brought up by mixed-race parents in a really rough area. My father was Jamaican and my mother was a Scouser. They met after the war but are now separated. My dad used to beat us badly – he had a saying: ‘Spare the rod to save the child.’ He was a big chap, a wrestler, and we used to be scared shitless of him. Basically, he used to beat the fuck out of us. As soon as he came into the room, we would walk out. He was a bastard to his children and a bastard to my mum – he used to beat her up, never treated her right and was always fucking around behind her back. But they say that what goes around comes around, and he has got his just deserts – he has Alzheimer’s now. He stays with me a few days a week – I am looking after him. His partner died a short while ago, and he is now on his own, spitting bubbles, having his arse wiped. But I have to put everything that he has done to me and the family behind me; the past is the past. I can change the future, but I can’t change the past. It is about today, and he is still my father after all.

I was on the streets from the age of about 12 or 13. I grew up on Acomb Street, about five minutes from the Manchester City football ground, which was why I became a City football fan. My very first means of collecting money was minding people’s cars. People used to park up on the street for the match, and we would ask if they wanted their car minded for 50p. If they said no, we would puncture the fucking tyres. We had our territory. Kids called the Ryans had another street and the Daltons another. We all kept to our own streets – no one stepped on anyone else’s territory. It was the way that I first made money on the street, really. I would make £15 or £20 a match – going back 25 or 30 years, that was a lot of money. When most kids were delivering papers, I was minding cars – and damaging cars if their owners didn’t pay the fee! In the end, everybody paid the fee.

Then I started to get involved in a bit of football violence. It was a great buzz, and I loved it. My first real fight was at Wigan football club. It was in the Doc Martens area, and I got knocked fucking out! This lad had banged me straight out. The police picked me up and asked me what I was doing in that area. Then they banged me in the stomach and told me to fuck off back to Manchester. That was my first-ever experience of football violence – getting knocked out and then battered by a copper! I was hoping to get my own back when City next played Wigan, but that never happened, as Wigan were always in a lower division than us.

I started off as a little soldier and worked my way up. I showed that I had a lot of bottle. I would go in first and could fight hard, and I became a leader at a very early age – about 15. I did it until I was about 28 years old. I liked the buzz of it all.

From about the age of 18, I arranged everything. Every Saturday for about 15 years, we would meet up at The Parkside pub. There used to be about a hundred of us all searching for violence. When I look back, I think, ‘What an idiot. What was the reason behind it all?’ But it was just one of those things: some people chose to be bikers or rockers; I chose to be a football hooligan. I know it wasn’t the right choice, but at that time I liked doing it.

We came on top at Millwall and West Ham and Middlesbrough, and afterwards all of us would get on the coach, bleeding and buzzing and telling our stories – adding a little bit onto them, as you do. It was great. I liked the fear and the buzz of it all. I never thought that people could get killed – they did, of course – it was just a bit of excitement. I got into football violence in a big way, and eventually I was the head man at City. Whenever there was trouble, I would be at the front of it.

The Manchester police eventually caught up with me. They set up an operation called Omega, infiltrated us and watched us for 12 months while they collected as much video evidence as they could. Looking back, I had an idea something was going on, but at the time I couldn’t tell who the coppers were. For almost 12 months, I got away with murder. I could do almost anything, and I didn’t get charged once, even though I was arrested 28 times that year for football-related violence. They were letting me get away with it because they were building a case on me.

Eventually, when I was 29 years old, and after dawn raids at my house, I was arrested. I was put on remand for six weeks and then let out on bail for about a year until the trial took place. I was sentenced to prison and banned from attending any football match in the UK or Europe for ten years.

I was a scaffolder by trade. However, before I got arrested, and because I had a reputation for football violence, I was asked to work the doors at a club called Fagan’s by a friend of mine called Mike Faux, who ran an event security company. I was training at a gym when Mike came over and asked if I fancied doing a bit of door work. At that time, I didn’t think it was really for me, but I had just bought a house in Prestwich with my girlfriend, and I needed the extra money. It paid £14 a night, and so a few days later I started working for him. I then went to work at Rotter’s nightclub on Oxford Street, Manchester. I think it was called Rotter’s because it was full of rotten people! It was where all the stag nights came for a night out, arriving in coaches from St Helens and Liverpool and from the outskirts of Manchester, and every single night there would be running battles outside the club between Manchester lads and those from outside town. It was mayhem, and we used to really fight for our money. The funny thing was that we all had to wear white blazers and dicky bows, which ended up covered in blood every night.

At that time, I did a bit of boxing and fancied myself as a bit of a boxer – although I admit I was never very good at it. One night, I was on the door at Rotter’s when I banged a kid and knocked him out clean. However, he swallowed his tongue, and I really thought I had killed him. I almost shit myself and rushed downstairs into the club, got changed and suddenly became a waiter, walking around the tables, trying to keep out of the way. Because I was the only black guy on the door at that time, one of his mates who was still inside immediately recognised me and rushed outside and told the rest of his pals, who then all tried to storm the door. It started to get a bit out of hand, but the kid came to and was all right in the end – it was a scary experience thinking that I had killed him, though. After that, I started to get a name for myself as a bit of a knockout merchant. I was then made second in command of the door.

One night at Rotter’s, I was working with a doorman called Jed. There was a pissed-up hen night at the club, and the girl who was getting married that weekend fancied a bit of sex with Jed. She and Jed went off to the staff changing-rooms, downstairs at the back of the club, and most of the rest of the door crew and I followed and started watching through a crack in the door. There were so many of us all trying to have a peek that the door gave way, and we all tumbled on top of each other into the room.

I worked on the door at Rotter’s for about two years – it was where I met my first wife Margaret. I have two children with Margaret, but I made a right fucking mess of that relationship, shagging around. I admit it was my fault; I just couldn’t keep my dick in my pants. I got arrested for the football violence while I was with her. That scared her, and, needless to say, the marriage didn’t last very long – it was over about two years after we got married.

At that point, I started to get asked to supply doormen to various clubs. I had been asked before but hadn’t really known anyone suitable. However, my contact list grew as I spent more time in the business and got to know other doormen. I also asked around at the gyms if anyone fancied doing a bit of door work and hand-picked guys who I knew or had heard were quite capable, and I started to get my own firm together. That’s how things started. Over a period of time, I started to get a few doors in and around Manchester, and it was then that I met Steve Brian, who was into the same sort of thing as me. He also had a few doors, so we decided to link up together and set up a joint company called Loc19.

The name Loc19 came from the Manchester canal. There was a bar on the canal called The Canal Bar and behind it was lock number 19. Steve and I sat in the bar one night, and I asked him what we could call the company? We were thinking of names when he saw the sign on the lock and said let’s call it Loc19. The rest is history.

We built the company on having bottle and balls, and the thing that made us strong was that we didn’t come from one particular area, unlike say the Gooch, who came from Moss Side. We were a central firm that didn’t have allegiance to any one area. We also dealt with situations as hard as we could, which rapidly built our reputation. But when we first started, we didn’t get any good venues, as the good venues didn’t need anyone like us. Also, most of them were controlled by firms outside town, so we only got the shit clubs. But over time we got a reputation for doing a good job and of keeping trouble out of clubs, and more and more venues therefore took us on. What we had back then was loyalty and friendship, which you don’t get now. Back then, we worked together, trained together, fought together. We all had a good bond. And we got involved in all sorts of things as well – lots of ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. People came to us wanting doormen to do this and that, and we kept things nice and tight and controlled things.

We got put to the test a couple of times by a couple of different firms. One night, we got tested by the Gooch. We were running a venue called The Limits in Manchester, and the Gooch were coming to the door in big teams and putting my doormen under pressure. I had had enough of it all, so I told the doormen to let them all in. Once they were in the venue, I made a few phone calls and got as many guys together as I could. There were about 50 of us in all. We shut all the entrances and exits and went into the venue tooled up, and we really hurt some people. But it caused a massive stink, as it was another firm. Their head guys came down, and we respectfully put them in the picture: they could do whatever they wanted, but we were standing firm – we were up for it and had made our stand. The Gooch knew we were not going to the police and that we would fight fire with fire. Because of that, our reputation developed even further.

We had guys from Salford who could sort the Salford side of things out and guys from Cheetham Hill who could sort the Cheetham Hill side of things out. As a result, there was a time in Manchester when most venues ended up using Loc19. We could control most clubs, especially raves and special events, which no one else could. We had allegiance to Loc19 from all quarters and areas of the city, even into Liverpool and Merseyside.

Although Steve and I ran Loc19 and we had over 200 guys working for us, I always worked the doors myself. I wanted to be on the front line. I liked the job. There would be trouble at some of Manchester’s late-night venues after 2.30 a.m. once all the main clubs had closed. People would want to come into certain of our venues, but we had to turn them away, which would cause us big problems. There were times when I worked the door every night wearing a bulletproof vest, tooled up with coshes and CS gas. And there were times when I would even wear a vest going to the corner shop for a pint of milk.