Bouncers and Bodyguards (8 page)

In this occasionally tough job, those were the sorts of places I first cut my teeth in. Tough, hard, demanding places, where I had no choice but to learn quickly and react fast. These are places I think all beginners should start at; if they can’t face the worst, then they should not be given the best. ‘Jacket fillers’ who have been on the doors for a while but have never experienced the worst should not be doing this job, as the worst
will
happen at some point to everyone. If you have not had the experience or don’t know how to react and deal with it, then you are putting yourself, your team and your customers in great danger. But nowadays most doormen don’t want to battle – they want an easy life, posing, chatting up the girls and looking cool. There are many doormen working the doors now that have never been involved in a violent incident. I find that amazing.

I am not sure if I would still be on the doors had it not been for Charlie Bronson sort of sponsoring me. At that time, I was definitely unable to afford the course fees and the licence, and maybe, as time passed, I would have never been able to get them.

They say that you miss the doors for the first few months away. You really miss the people, the music, the fun, the other doormen, but after a while away from that life, away from the doors, it becomes harder and harder to go back again. At one time, a weekend at home with the missus was a luxury and a rarity, but after a few weekends at home it becomes the norm and leaving is virtually impossible.

These days I work an altogether different venue: The Boars Head taphouse in Kidderminster – a large, friendly pub that puts on live bands and prides itself in attracting decent customers. Pop in sometime and say hello.

Stu was born into a decent middle-class family in a nice area of Worcestershire but had a strict upbringing and was often caned by his father. As a teenager, he was always in trouble: hanging around with bad lads and causing bother in the rougher parts of town. His father then introduced Stuart to boxing, which occupied his mind and his time. He gained self-respect, a high level of fitness and skill, and, above all, self-control. In his late teens, he made friends with a well-known doorman at a local club who saw potential in him and introduced him to working the doors. Charlie Bronson helped Stuart get his SIA licence when the laws changed. Although Stuart now has a great day job, he still works the doors two nights a week and loves it.

I
n the summer of ’95, I was given a ray of hope after three long years of very dark times. I had started the year off by going to see a specialist in the field (i.e. a shrink) who talked me through why I had developed a ‘hit first’ and then ‘many more’ times philosophy. I wasn’t suicidal, but I did put myself in extreme situations that suggested suicidal tendencies, in particular several confrontations that I handled in a less than diplomatic way. I saw my shrink for a little over four months, and we established very quickly that it was not because I had issues with my mother, which seems to be a psychiatrist’s answer to 90 per cent of all their patients’ problems. Instead, I had suffered a huge betrayal years previously that had put me in a very angry place, and I was venting my anger towards everyone but the person who had caused it. I had nurtured a destructive outlook and knew that I had to channel that destructiveness into something constructive. And the answer was baking.

The idea was to vent anger through kneading dough, mixing ingredients, using controlled measurements and having a finished product that would then provide happiness and substance for others to enjoy rather than causing pain and suffering. It had its desired effect, and I became a dab hand in the kitchen, much to the delight of my colleagues who had to eat the sweet spoils of my anger.

This, however, created two new problems: the first was that I was becoming the cause of mild diabetes amongst the team; and the second was that I wasn’t feeling like a naughty bad boy any more, which was rather bizarre, considering the lifestyle I was living and the kind of working environment I was in. Therefore, instead of becoming the heavy-handed puncher, I became the scam artist of Scorpion Security Services, the company I was working for, pulling strokes on every door I worked and finding out every way there was to make a pound from a penny. In fact, I believe I am one of the main reasons why life on London doors has changed so much, with the introduction of venue rules and door policies. Sorry, guys and girls, for spoiling the big earnings, but I feel in a roundabout sort of way that I have created opportunities for you to find
new
ways to scam nightclubs and pub doors to help supplement your meagre hourly rate and make the job worthwhile.

Anyway, back to the point of this little story. I pulled the mother of all door scams at the Shepherds Bush Empire. It is, as they say, a story for another day, but it was so big and so bad that I became too hot a commodity to stay working in central London. My boss, John Smith, had to show his clients that he acted swiftly and severely when any of his employees broke the rules. In reality, if he did feel that way, I would have been fired on the spot and reported to the police rather than given a pat on the back and a sweet position as head doorman at a new brasserie-cum-nightclub in Hampton Court called Pals.

Pals was just one of many in a chain owned by Danny Rose and his business partner Geoff. Danny used to own The Limelight club in Shaftesbury Avenue back in the late 1980s, early ’90s. I used to work The Limelight in those days; it was just around the corner from The Hippodrome, where my friend and occasional work colleague Lenny McLean used to run the door. In those days, London’s West End was a great place to work the doors – before licences were introduced. So many angles; so many perks – it was good times for all!

Anyway, the timing, as usual, was perfect for me – one door closed and another opened, and I started my 18-month stint working at Pals in both Hampton Court and Croydon. I have to say that Pals in Hampton Court is one of my all-time top doors that I have ever had the privilege and pleasure of working, but as with any new establishment, it wasn’t always plain sailing, and in its opening week I was involved in a near-death confrontation. Had I still been thinking the way I had been at the beginning of the year, I would definitely not be around today to tell this tale.

Danny opened the doors to Pals on a Thursday night. Although he already had a string of them across the country, it was this one that was his pride and joy. He had finally acquired a prime location opposite Hampton Court Palace and had plans to develop a wealthy and occasionally pretentious clientele. The cream-and-blue decor was standard, but each venue had tailored fixtures and fittings to complement the local area – this particular two-storey building had a cosy restaurant on a raised section that was separated from the bar and a sunken chill-out area filled with comfy sofas and moody lighting. The upstairs function room was for private hire during the week, but on Friday and Saturday nights it acted as a separate area for punters to dance the night away.

The door rules were simple: between Sunday and Wednesday it was virtually anything goes, which meant over 18s and trainers were allowed; Thursdays were over 21s and smart dress; and the weekends were strictly over 25s and
very
smart dress. Danny was adamant that these rules were never broken, because he knew what the area lacked: a venue where the older, richer clientele could go and relax and spend their easily (I always presumed) earned wealth.

The venue had a capacity for 550 people, but Danny always made a point of never going over the 500 mark. He figured that there was no need to squash people in – the customers were given decent elbow room so that they would enjoy themselves more and therefore come back for more. For Danny, it wasn’t just about the money – it was about reputation. When he owned The Limelight, it was the place to be seen; paparazzi, celebrities and high-profile customers would often be spotted coming and going from its large glass doors. Of course, the place went downhill the minute he sold it, and if it had not been for the door team that stayed on, it would have easily gone the way of other clubs that underestimated the value of a good door team. The proof of that pudding is that when they did change the security company, the place eventually hit rock bottom, and it was sold on again to an Australian company that came in and shut the doors to The Limelight altogether. They eventually rebranded the place to match their franchises worldwide, and the doors reopened – only this time the venue marketed itself to a different sector of revellers, and business never reached the same levels it did when shrewd executive Danny Rose owned the place. Danny knew how to add the extra magic to make the punters come back time and time again – he was a born nightclub promoter.

Before Danny’s reign, Pals had been a pub with an ‘anything goes’ policy each and every day of the week: underage drinkers, no dress codes and all the fights that could be started. Its regulars were travellers and nasty characters from East Moseley – the noisy, violent, working-class district of the peaceful and wealthy Hampton Court area. The landlord who ran the pub back then was spending more money replacing windows and furniture than what was being rung through the tills, so it wasn’t too long before an alleged insurance job was organised – a fire that actually killed the landlord and the two idiots he hired to start the blaze. Needless to say, Danny did not want the same kind of crowds coming back to his new venue and gave his word to turn a blind eye to anything that went on at the front door that enforced that rule.

Thanks to the inexperienced doormen that the door supervisors’ licence scheme was allowing through its vetting system, I had not yet arranged a fully hand-picked team. Hampton Court was a far cry from the West End and did not have the additional financial rewards that working ‘in the smoke’ offered. Scorpion Security supplied me with a few people until I had the chance to build a team I was happy with, but they were mostly a complete bunch of utter wankers – the licensing scheme had eliminated a tasty workforce and left mainly rank amateurs who could not stand up against a gust of wind let alone a team of scumbags from hell. Thankfully, I had managed to get an old acquaintance to agree to work with me. His name was Kevin, and he was a seasoned professional who had moved to Surrey after making a few quid in the construction game.

I first met Kevin back in 1992 when I was freelancing. I had just enjoyed the atmospheric event of the World Wrestling Federation’s SummerSlam at Wembley Stadium, before heading down to Break for the Border, just off ?Tottenham Court Road, to work the night as a fill-in. It was a special night for me, not because I met Kevin, but because some of the wrestling stars came down to blow off some steam – they were staying in a nearby hotel. One of the stars who came in was the immortal Hulk Hogan – he was a boyhood hero of mine after I first saw him on late-night wrestling back in 1984. However, by the way he was acting in the club, I was glad I no longer thought of him as a role model, otherwise I would have been severely crushed – but, again, that is a story for another time.

Kevin worked with me on the front door at Pals, vetting the punters and keeping the trouble out. Inside the club, I was lucky enough to have been supplied with Paul ‘Professor Hightower’ Smith, a six feet six inch mass of a man from Streatham. His Frank Bruno looks and stature made him stand out in a crowd, and the Professor had a right cross to equal the boxing champ he resembled so much. Paul got the nickname Professor Hightower because when he was not on duty he wore spectacles that seemed to hide his aggressive nature – you could understand how Clark Kent got away with it. They also made him look like a schoolteacher, hence the moniker. This was the full extent of the back-up I could rely on. The other two guys in attendance were a waste of space, and the sixth member of the team had yet to show up – it was not a good start.

The doors were set to open at 7.30 p.m. for the club’s grand opening. The general manager was Michael Camp, and he was giving his staff a last-minute pep talk. At one time, Michael, or ‘Campy’ as he was called, had run The Limelight for Danny. Campy was a thinly built man with a little Friar Tuck patch starting to show through his thin blond locks. He was a good manager – he was realistic and understood the fact that the door staff occasionally had to do what they had to do in order to get the job done and would back them up 98 per cent of the time.

It was 7.25 p.m. when the last member of the door team finally graced the squad with her presence – her boyfriend, who was also in the security game, as well as being a part-time DJ, had insisted on dropping her off. In true West Indian style, he ran late for everything, but as far as I was concerned – especially in the muscle game – the only thing you should run late for is your own funeral. I told her that if her boyfriend couldn’t get her to the venue at least 15 minutes before the start of her shift, she should perhaps work at a different venue. From the following night onwards, Allison drove herself to and from work.

With all the door team together, I gave a brief talk on the history of the area and what the management wanted to happen with the club. I pointed out that trouble was expected for at least the first month or so, so everyone had to be on their toes and give full back-up. Although everyone nodded in agreement, I still had very little faith in some of the new faces and made a mental note to make phone calls the following day in order to get a few more reliable people to make up the crew.

The locals were alerted to the opening of Pals by a highly organised invite system. Danny had done his homework on the surrounding community, and he targeted people who lived in certain streets based on house prices, as well as business owners who had a specific turnover. He then sent personal invites to all those who matched the criteria and let their bragging at being selected act as word of mouth. By 9 p.m. the place had reached capacity, and the atmosphere was a happy one, helped by the fact that Danny had laid on free drinks for the first two hours. He had special gold cards printed and was issuing them out to a select few. The card allowed for priority entry to Pals if a queue had formed outside or if the door was running on a one-out, one-in system, and it also gave the holder entry to the upstairs VIP club. The gold card soon became a highly sought-after acquisition.