Shoot Interview In The Works

I’m pleased to announce that I now have a shoot interview project in the works!
After several emails, back and forth with Andy Weatherall of S.O.B. Productions I can now confirm that that my very first shoot interview will become a reality. It’s no longer a case of if, but just a case of when. Both Andy and myself keep very busy schedules, so I can not confirm a definite date for release – it’s just a matter of time. I intend to upload some of the footage on YouTube as and when things have been finalized

If anyone has any questions on the subjects of self defence, martial arts, pro wrestling, my time as doorman, current training methods, or any of the subject matter on my website – please fill out the contact form below:

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From Bouncer To Boot’s Chemists

My doorman’s licence was due to expire, and I wasn’t sure weather I should stay on the door or just go. It was a matter of principal because I was too tight to pay for the licence. It just din’t make sense. Why should I pay out money for another one? I was working the doors to make money – not bloody well spend it. The problem was that I loved door-work. It was a buzz. Exiting. On the flip-side, I didn’t like the person that I was becoming. Even my own parents didn’t recognize me. It was like their son had gone, and now someone – or something else was there instead. I noticed it many a time, when I saw different looking eyes gazing back at me in the reflection of a mirror…

One of the newish lads on the doors, Adam, worked in the day as a security guard. He told me how the company was going to pay for the new SIA security licence for all it’s security staff. He gave me an application form. he put in a good word for me. I got an interview, and got the job. The problem was – I didn’t really want it. I felt like a right w@nker, walking around boot’s chemists dressed as the Big Bossman. I hated that! …but, I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t go back on the door without my badge – so, I just had to play the waiting game and put up with it for now. The minute I had my certificate and badge – I was gonna sod right off and go back on the doors.

The job was all or nothing. Either quiet and boring, or it could be some heroin addict with HIV or hepatitis, trying to stab you with a dirty used drug needle. Rest assured, I showed those dirty, low life scrotes no quarter. I’m NOT going to lie and say that that it didn’t scare me. It did scare me. There was an element of fear when something like this happened, and being afraid does not make you a coward. It’s a natural survival instinct. Anyone who says they are not afraid in these situations is either telling a blatant lie – or a psychopath. I’d had knives pulled on me while I used to work on the doors, and knives can end your life in an instant, but for some reason the drug needles were even more frightening. Being stabbed with a used drug needle that could infect you with a STD just felt a lot more terrifying.

These drug addicts were the sort of individuals who would push someones grandmother down the stairs, beat her withing an inch of her life, and rob her of her pension money for their next fix. Most of my professional life Iv’e had to deal with a lot of really hard men, but men with some morals. Your old school hard case would never attack a woman. As violent as any of these men could be, they would be gentlemen around women and their elders. With drug addicts there is none of that old school morality. They won’t fight you one on one, and they wont fight unarmed either.

Iv’e been there. Iv’e witnessed drug addicts shaking like a leaf, and breaking out into a sweat because they are so desperate for their next fix. Withdrawal symptoms. They used to come into the store when they were on a methadone program. You see – Boot’s Chemists supply them with methadone. The addicts get it for free, all payed for by good honest, hardworking, law abiding tax payer. This is a substitute for heroin. The idea is that it’s there to get the addict off the heroin. Sound’s like a good thing, right? In reality, the addict  is substituting one addictive substance for another one. Methadone is far more addictive than heroin. That’s a fact, and if you don’t believe me – do your own research. Boot’s get payed pure money – like you would’t believe for this. Funding from the government. So, if you want to become a drug dealer and make the big money, without the risk of going to prison – get your arse off to college or university, become a pharmacy student, get a qualification that’s nothing more than a licence to sell drugs.

Another thing that was common, mums taking their teenage daughters to the counter for the “morning after pill” or some other form of contraceptive. I’m talking girls who were 13, 14 years old and so on… It’s bad shit. I just remember thinking to myself at that time, has society come to this? You would think that over time, humans would evolve. Get smarter. Not the case here. Especially with the addicts. They had all the collective intellect of a retarded egg yolk. Some of the store management weren’t much better. Oh, and “PC Police”? …Oh, no. You can’t call them drug addicts. No, no, no! You MUST call them a patient, or else you’re discriminating. …BOLLOCKS! …That’s nowt more than a load of politically correct sugar coated bullshit. If you’re a drug addict – you’re a drug addict.

Needless to say, I didn’t stay in that job. Hated it! Besides the security company were a bunch of liars! They weren’t going to pay for my licence at all. They wanted guards to pay for it themselves. It was blatant lie all along. When the time come that I had no choice but to take the licence – I buggered off and quit. I’d had enough of dealing with the dregs of society and the bureaucrats. I didn’t want to be in that environment anymore. Sod living like that for a game of soldiers. I’ve never looked back.

The Fine Line Between Life And Death

There was at least two occasions during my time as doorman when for a few moments I thought that I actually may have killed someone. It’s a surreal experience.

The first time this happened was when I was working at The Albion. Stoke City FC were playing football at home, and after the football game the fans would hit the town celebrating – or drowning their sorrows. When I arrived one of the barmaids asked me to keep an eye on some bloke who was drunk at the bar. She thought that he may become a problem. Barmaids are great – as are DJ’s, because they are an extra pair of eyes and ears.

Barmaids are a doorman’s best friend. They’ve hidden countless weapons of mine in their handbags over the years. Knuckledusters, bayonets, machetes, claw hammers, you name it – they’ve stored and concealed it for me. Anyway the barmaids suspicions proved to be right. The bloke started singing Delilah at the top of his voice. He couldn’t sing to save his life, and it was really pissing off some of the regulars. I tried to have a quiet, polite word in his ear. Nice, respectful, and friendly. Initially he complied. …but five minutes later he started off again. I went over to give him one final chance. More firm and assertive this time around. He started kicking off trying to hit out at me. I slipped him and applied a sleeper hold. I put the squeeze on and tried to escort him out through the door. It was hard work because drunks are like dead weight and they don’t have the coordination to go where you’re trying to guide and direct them. it’s like trying to push a supermarket trolley with a broken wheel.

Because he didn’t appear to be compliant – I put the squeeze on even harder. When I finally got him outside I let go of him …and he just fell face first to the floor. He was like a tree falling that had been chopped down. Face first to the floor. …Thud! …Smack! …Not a nice sound. He was motionless. He just stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. One of my door colleagues tried to wake him up, but he had no luck. That’s when a bit of panic sets into the back of your mind. What if he’s dead? What if I’ve killed someone? This wasn’t my intention. You don’t leave your home and your family thinking oh won’t it be great to kill someone tonight… Eventually he came around and I just can’t explain how relieved I felt inside. He didn’t look good. His nose was as flat as a pancake and his teeth were like The Ten Commandments – all of them broken. He was now drunk and probably had a concussion to add to tomorrow’s awaiting hangover.

I do have a theory about what happened. When I put the sleeper hold on him there’s a chance I squeezed a little too hard, and therefore put him to sleep almost immediately. No wonder he was dead weight and hard to move around. I thought he was just trying to be a twat by resisting – so I squeezed even harder. I honestly think I came a few seconds away from killing someone that evening. All I can say is Thank God that I didn’t.

Another episode occurred on “Nappy Night” or student night. Nappy Night was held in Hanley, every Monday, when all the university students hit town. I had just finished my shift at a venue called The Junction. It was about midnight. Me and the rest of the door team went up to Flares (now called Reflex) for a few drinks. We would usually put as much alcohol away until closing time (2:00am). There’s kind of a code of honour thing among doormen – even if it’s your night off you’d still back other doorman up and help out during a skirmish. Anyway, a fight broke out on the dance floor and one of the door staff called Lucy threw some scrote out of the building. I followed her outside to cover her back. She turned around to walk back inside and this scrote just came running for her. I walked diagonally between the two of them and him with a terrific right hook, but I brought it up from waist height, a bit like an uppercut. I crouched slightly and drove up with my legs. Twisted at the waist. Pivoted on the balls of my feet …and punched my own weight.Bang! Crack! Knockout! The most perfect punching technique I’d ever utilized in my entire life.

I think the real damage was done was when he fell to the ground. The back of his skull hit the concrete with a sickening thud. If the punch didn’t knock him out – the blow to the back of his head must have. I think a doorman known as Daddy Steve revived him in the end, but I thought for a few moments that I’d killed someone once again! Just like the time before – I felt so relieved when the guy came around.

There’s a difference between knocking someone out and killing someone. The human body is far more fragile than we realize. …and there’s a very thin veil between life and death. Suddenly I felt a new kind of fear. I was no longer fearful of the so-called psychopath hard men. I was afraid of myself and what I could be capable of.

Knives, Knuckle Dusters, And Knockouts

It’s not uncommon for a doorman, or anyone involved in security work to get the occasional threat from someone who may be prepared to use illegal weapons.

One night, I was working on the door at Flickers in Newcastle-Under-Lyme and some scrote who we had thrown out previously threatened me with a knife. He told me how he was gonna cut me up and stab me so many times. He threatened to kill me. He reached into his pocket, and before he could pull his blade out I hit him with a knuckleduster as hard and as fast as I could. Right on his jaw. I didn’t take chances. I had to beat him to the draw like Clint Eastwood in an old cowboy movie. …Now don’t get me wrong, you can try all the martial arts techniques for defenses against knife attacks, but this is NOT a dojo. It’s the REAL fucking world. It’s always best to beat them to the draw – so to speak. Some doormen and martial artists call this principal “the preemptive strike”and I don”t have an issue with that terminology, but we always used to say “get the first one in”. It had to be done that way because he came mob handed with about four or five of his mates. Scrotes think they are tough when they are tooled up and in a gang. Best strategy is to checkmate the King in one move, because all the pawns fall apart. There was only three doormen on flickers, and there was at least five of these scrotes. The guy with the knife was doing all the talking. Enticing his mates to have a go at us. So, when I banged him out, all of his mates shit their pants and ran off down the Ironmarket. I didn’t want to leave him there for the police to discover, so I dragged him past the Guild Hall and dumped him inside a side alleyway next to where the old Savoy/ Metropolis nightclub used to be…

About an hour later I had another episode. This time with a lad known as Kane. He did a lot of bare knuckle boxing with gypsies and was quite handy with his fists by all accounts. he was a well known trouble maker in town, and we had ejected him a couple of weeks earlier. He came back looking to get even, or revenge, or whatever his mentality wanted to called it. He made threats, and started stripping of to the waist – just like an old bare knuckle prizefighter. …That’s one thing that gypsies and travelers all do before a fight, they strip off to the waist. While he was taking his coat and his shirt off I banged him out too. I knuckle dusted him, just like the other guy earlier. I dumped him down the same side alleyway as the other guy. …and he was still there, motionless in a heap. It was like the body count was starting to slowly stack up. I’m not bragging cos’ I’m not proud of it. I’m not ashamed of it either cos’ I survived and went home in one piece. No regrets.