"If you don't start treating me with some respect, you're gonna get a punch in the fucking face."
Thursday 29 March 2007
This evening, I had the pleasure of doing the doors on my first football match. England versus Andorra, of course. Droves were expected but probably 50-60 people showed up, and about 15-20 of those left on the back of the 0-0 result at half time. England went on to win 3-0, but to be honest I really didn't give a crap. It was a fairly interesting experience but not the one I'd assumed or possibly hoped for.
Moved up to the main complex at 10pm and it was quiet pretty much until 1am and closing time. The same regulars had glued themselves to their seats and decided that they'd have yet another five minutes drinking time on all that they'd had the rest of the week. Cue much watch-looking from the door staff and a plethora of rolling of the eyes. One particular troublesome area was this group of owners, and their children, who were all of drinking age, by the bar. Despite repeated "drink up, lads" they held their ground, and it was only when the security descended upon them en masse that they gave up. One bloke, the eldest, and by all accounts the main owner, had to down his entire pint before he left. This turned out to be a fairly decisive move.
So, ultimately, they, and another table of mostly women, make their way out of the club. Fine. Two women are left, and after they've pissed around for another ten minutes or so we get them outside too. It ends there, yeah? No. The collective of owners and totally pissed-up female visitors have now grouped just outside the first entrance to the complex and are making all kinds of noise. We'd already been warned about it by the park security and so decide to take a walk down there to ease them on their way. Edmonson leads, I follow, with Jabba a few paces behind me.
When we get there, one of the girls, who had already been repeatedly warned about her language, is effing and blinding herself into oblivion. There's pissed, and there's pissed, and she's another pint past the latter. Edmonson steps in and tells her that he's already warned her, and when a few of her mates start to buzz around, all of whom are trying to get her to stop shouting and go home, I say, "Yeah, come on, it's late and there are kids trying to sleep just down there," pointing to a nearby pitch.
Well, that was clearly a major mistake, because out of nowhere the pint-downer I mentioned earlier steps right up to me and says, "If you're going to be this hard this early you're in for a tough fucking season, mate."
To which I'm like: what?
"I wasn't speaking to you mate," I say.
He moves closer. "If you're going to be this hard this early you're in for a tough fucking season, mate," he repeats.
By now I'm trying to figure out exactly what he's trying to say to me. I hear the words, but it doesn't make much sense because I hadn't looked at or referenced him even once and was being absolutely clear and very calm. At this point I even held my arms out and my palms 'open', as you're told to do, to ease his aggression. Of course, some people think the Nazi salute traces back to an indication to show an empty palm, but we'll ignore that for now.
"I don't know what you're saying to me mate. Sorry?"
"If you're going to be this hard this early you're in for a tough fucking season, mate," he said for a third time.
"I wasn't even speaking to you mate. I was speaking to her." I nodded towards the girl in question, who by now had collapsed on the floor to the right of us.
"We're fucking owners mate," he said, stepping in so that our faces were about three inches apart. "If you don't start treating me with some respect, you're gonna get a punch in the fucking face."
What!? I again thought to myself. This time I even said it. "What!?"
"If you don't start treating me with some respect, you're gonna get a punch in the fucking face. We're fucking owners."
By now, I had no fucking clue what to say to him. He wasn't a tall bloke but he was fairly broad, but he was pissed out of his fucking mind and I'm pretty sure that if he went for me he'd do well to get one decent punch in. But more than that I was stunned as to how a situation could change so quickly and without me doing anything even remotely wrong; indeed, I was utterly confused as to how anything I said could be misinterpreted. The reality is it couldn't. The truth is he was wankered. I was saying these words to him and they weren't even registering. He had what he had to say and that was it; like an autotron, he was endlessly on repeat.
"If you don't start treating me with some respect, you're gonna get a punch in the fucking face."
We'd been standing literally face-to-face for about 30 seconds when suddenly his youngest son walks up to me and carefully pulls me away. "Leave it, mate, " he says, "Just leave it." To their credit both of his sons had been telling him to leave it throughout and I guess it had reached that point where something had to happen unless somebody stepped in. His elder son then came over and said the same thing to me, and both offered me their hands, which I took after some pause. By now, dad had been led away, but continued to eyeball me the whole time.
What!?
The collective dispersed and went back to their respective sites. Meantime, we walked back up to the complex, and the entire time I was tracing back the sequence of events to see if I had done or said anything strange or odd that might have set him off. I didn't, and Jabba later confirmed it. "Drink is evil," he added, and in some people it most definitely is.
The upside to all this is that the days when owners called the shots are long gone. Throughout the toe-to-toe in the back of my mind was the thought that this guy is fucked, as even threatening a staff member with violence is enough to see him not only be barred from the site but lose his £60,000 caravan in the process. Happy days. Or, so you would think, but if Jabba's story a few days ago has taught me anything it's that if this guy gets anything more than a polite warning I'll eat my fucking badge. In other words, I'll probably see him tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. Until one of us does something.
posted by Sheamus @ 3:04 am
