Greater love hath no man

In the late seventies I worked at the Bavarian Beer Hall in Bell Vue as a doorman. (They are called receptionist’s now) My duties included greeting guests as they arrived, ripping the entrance ticket they had just purchased in half, generally keeping an eye on things, and beating the shit out of them if they got stroppy.

I quickly learned how to rip a ticket without actually ripping it and palming an already ripped half to the customer. This enabled me to hand back the unripped ticket to the girl selling them at the door so that it could be resold and not ripped again. We made quite a few quid doing this, which was good because the wage for a door receptionist wasn’t what you would call great. I know I’m a cheeky monkey but everywhere you go someone is on the fiddle and it was a dangerous job, so I looked on it as a perk.

Another good perk at the time was selling Beer stein’s to the drunken rabble that fell through the doors at the end of the night. Bell Vue paid fifty pence for them; they paid a fiver, pretty good return for something that didn’t belong to us. Then when everyone had gone we would go outside to collect the steins that they had left lying around because the coach driver wouldn’t allow them on his vehicle, and sell them again another night.

We had our regulars, but most were out of towner's on some kind of do from work. We were host to uncountable stag and hen nights, but whatever the reason for coming to that cosy little inn, you can be sure that around ten-o clock at night the shit would hit the fan. It being a beer hall, the guest’s were encouraged to get drunk, stand on tables and wave their beer steins about, the more they spilled, the less they could drink, ergo the more they had to buy. By the end of the night, elegant woman who had earlier breezed through the door in evening dress would be seen with their skirts tucked in their knickers pissed as farts grovelling on their knees looking for the false teeth they had spewed onto the beer soaked floor.

Yes it was a glamorous life, sort of. We had our pick of women, who seemed to migrate naturally toward anything wearing a dickie bow, as much alcohol as we could tolerate and on many occasions rubbed shoulders with some very famous people. I could name drop here but they are stories in their own right, when I say we I refer to my colleagues, Geof, Mike, Les (The head) Stan, and others that came and went when they were all out of teeth. Glamorous but risky, I remember one weekend two coach loads of Scouser’s came down hell bent on revenge after several of them had been thrown out the week before.

We were used to this kind of thing and brought contingency plan A into effect, it still irks me that they thought they wouldn’t be recognised sporting their black eyes, hooters like red peppers and miss shaped faces. There were around forty of them, they had already imbibed loopy juice on the way into Manchester, and as they very obviously were going to top up their addled brains, didn’t really present that much of a problem. Fact: Forty pissed up Scousers are no match for six sober door mechanics. Sound like a boast? Well don’t forget contingency plan A.

There are as in most inner cities some very hard chaps knocking about, we knew those of any note, and more often than not they would come into our place before moving on to a club, so we knew they could be relied on to help should things become sticky. We made them aware that it might get a little turbulent later in the evening; this kind of news always seemed to bring a smile to their faces. The opposition inevitably tried to outsmart us by staging fights in various parts of the hall, this way they split the available doorstaff up and caused confusion. Confusion did as it happens play a big part in the evenings events, but it was only evident on the faces of our gallant Scousers and remained there until the violence that ensued replaced it with swollen lips, broken teeth, blood and yet more black eyes.

When it did start even I wasn’t prepared for level of violence that quickly spread to every part of the hall, word had got round amongst the regulars that Armageddon was about to erupt, and I think that under cover of the main altercation some old scores were settled. In any event what followed was like a scene out of a cowboy film, a bar room brawl. Nearly everyone was involved, even woman. I saw two people thrown from the balcony, another chap had a fire extinguisher introduced to his head, several people had glasses smashed into their faces and at one point a gun was pulled out but misfired.

The whole thing lasted twenty minutes, which is a long time even for a well-organised, well-attended event like this one was. However at the end of it, our hapless band of Scousers minus their shirts and in some cases their pants, finished the night lined up against the security fence, bloodied and bruised, waiting for the police to arrive and I suspect wishing they had stayed away from the rainy city. They were escorted out of town by the police, who incidentally arrived just after it was all over. A rematch with them was expected but didn’t materialise.

The next week all doormen who worked for Bell Vue were told to arrive early on Friday night for a meeting in the beer hall with the then regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England. I won’t divulge his name because he is a Christian and his subsequent behaviour later that night might embarrass him.

Suffice it to say that we were royally bollocked for the fracas the week before. I’m paraphrasing here but it was a long time ago anyway it went like this: Your total lack of even basic diplomacy in dealing with customers who had a legitimate complaint was abhorrent to the way any decent human being should think. The ugly and sustained violence that was meted out to them by representatives of my company will not again be tolerated. Anyone and I mean anyone who displays this kind of Neanderthal behaviour in future will be immediately dismissed. You will in future gently escort using only as much force as is necessary people causing trouble to the managers office where the reason for their upset we be ascertained.

He went on in this vein for some time and his parting shot was to remind us that we were not allowed to drink on duty, which we didn’t do anyway we had more sense than that. He came over to the Bav as we called it several times that night to let us know that we were being watched. His last call was at around ten thirty, the place was jumping every one was having a good time and there hadn’t been much trouble up until then. I remember him standing near the main doors, hands behind his back moving up and down on his feet, much like Dixon of dock green used to do. He had a satisfied smile on his face and was looking around and no doubt feeling quite pleased with himself when the first punch was thrown. I don’t know who threw it, or who received it but the exchange of skin erupted very quickly into an ugly and very vicious fight. People who were there the week before must have thought that it was round two of the Scouser affair as once again all hell broke loose and glass pots chairs and anything that wasn’t screwed down became missiles.

I forgot to mention that our regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England had an assistant, at least that’s what he called him. His name was Simon, a slight lad of immaculate taste, who had a fondness for pink shirts. Simon had been talking to a customer very near the epicentre of the earthquake and at the onset of hostilities clapped his hands to his head and screamed at the top of his voice. Our regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England looked on in horror as Simon was punched to the floor by a woman, who then began piercing his pink shirt with the heel of her stiletto. Our regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England sprung into action. (At this point hum chariots of fire in your head) sprinting several yards bounding onto one of the tables and launching himself like superman into the air into the direction of his downed and wounded assistant.

As he flew he threw punches, when he landed he grabbed the woman with the overzealous stiletto’s, by her blouse and gave her a head but even Les would have been proud of. He looked round franticly for his stricken pal who was hiding under one of the benches and dragged him to safety before once more joining the fray and handing out the kind of justice that not many hours before he had forbade us to use. The fight didn’t last that long thanks mainly to the ferocity of our regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England, in fact we had to pull him off quite innocent bystanders who were just trying to get out of the way. It took a while for him to calm down and even longer for the wild look in his eyes to disappear. He was high on adrenaline, and between you and me I think it turned Simon on, certainly he would look at his immediate superior in a different way from now on.

They left for fields anew the next day and I never saw them again. We went back to our old way of doing things at the Bav, but you can bet that Simon and our regional head of Trust House Fortes in the north of England spent a supercharged last night in Manchester.