I remember the first time I felt truly alone working the door; when I realized I was figuratively and literally, at the end of the line. When I first started working bar and club security, I was normally working relatively large venues, which required a good number of doormen; and fortunately for my education a lot of those individuals had many years of experience, which they were happy to share with us junior/newer members of the team. This always reassured me because I knew if I got too far out of my depth, I could rely on someone bailing me out – I’d just have to slow things down and manage the situation until someone with more experience would be there to assist me. That was the level of responsibility I was given in the early days. However, as I became more experienced, and had demonstrated that I could handle more complex and stressful situations my responsibilities increased, and – quite rightfully - more was demanded of me. I was also being recommended by more senior doormen, to work other venues etc. That was how bar/pub security worked at the time; a network of individuals who supported and vouched for each other. If someone couldn’t work a shift, phone calls would be made until someone who was available would be found, and this person might not be someone who regularly worked that pub or club - if you weren’t working and/or didn’t get a call to do a shift on New Year’s Eve, you could take it that your professional standing wasn’t up to much.

I was once asked by someone I knew, if I’d be willing to do a shift, assisting a friend of theirs – who’d been working the door of a fairly large pub on their own – on a Friday Night, leading up to Christmas. It wasn’t expected that there’d be much trouble (as the doorman had a good reputation) but the owner/landlord of the pub, was concerned about increased numbers and wanted some extra insurance. In fact, he wanted two extra bodies working the door that night, which ended up being me and someone else who’d only been on the job a few weeks. The start of the evening wasn’t the easiest, but manageable, and I didn’t get the feeling things were going to take a turn for the worse – after working these types of gig for a few years, you get pretty good at judging the collective mood of crowds and groups, and when things are about to go south. Many pubs have certain regulars, who are good customers, but have “days” when they become a handful and need to be asked to leave. For some, they’d go through the motions and theatrics of objecting, but would understand that they’d crossed a line, and to avoid being barred for a longer period of time, would peacefully accompany you off the premises – sometimes with an apology and a handshake at the door, when they left. However, there were others who had settled into an evening of drinking, and had decided that they weren’t going anywhere, and were free to act and behave how they wanted. When you’re working as part of a small team, you hope that trouble comes in a synchronous fashion, where you can bring weight of numbers to each incident, rather than different events occurring at the same time – then you may have to make difficult choices as to where, how, and when you allocate resources. At around 10:30 pm, about half an hour before last orders, which at the time was 11 pm, we had two events occur simultaneously.

The regular doorman and I were just outside the entrance dealing with a small group of aggressive twenty-somethings who wanted to get in before last orders i.e., the last chance to get a drink at a pub/bar that night (there weren’t any local clubs in the area that had extended drinking hours). Chances were that this group had been kicked out of another pub and were looking for somewhere to finish up their night – at this time of year, most people knew that they’d be lucky to get into a pub this late in the game, as it would be at full/near-full capacity, so chances are they weren’t trying to find somewhere new to drink by choice etc. As we were dealing with this group who were getting more and more frustrated, at realizing they weren’t going to convince us that they should come in, whilst at the same time recognizing that they were on the clock, to find somewhere to drink, one of the bar staff informed us that the other doorman, had been seriously injured, by somebody swinging/smashing a heavy glass ashtray into his eye. He’d done this from his seat at the bar, after he’d been asked to leave because he’d groped a teenage girl who was collecting glasses from tables. The head doorman told me to go and deal with it, whilst he made sure nobody from the group – which was starting to realize that their best bet to get another drink was to find another pub – tried to force their way inside. I accompanied the bar-tender back in, and she pointed out the man who had laid out the other doorman, and who was now starting to get physically aggressive with those around him. I knew that because an ambulance had been called, the police would be turning up at some point, but that could take some time; especially around Christmas time, when all emergency services would be stretched thin. This was one of the situations, where I was on my own, and backup was going to be a relatively long time in coming.

There can be a loneliness that creeps in with this realization – if you let it – that can be utterly debilitating. I remember watching the 1997 boxing match between Lennox Lewis and Oliver McCall, when in the third round McCall had a breakdown in the ring, dropped his guard and started to cry, refusing to defend himself and/or throw a punch (the referee had to stop the fight in the third); some of the people I was watching the fight with couldn’t understand what was happening and why an experienced, trained fighter would have such a reaction. Sometimes the sheer loneliness, of being out there on your own can be overwhelming, and if you let this sink in, you’re finished – McCall refused to come out in the fourth round and forfeited the match. This feeling of overwhelming isolation is different to the “peripheral doubts”, which cause you to question the consequences of your actions e.g., “What if my punch lacks power?”, “Is what I’m about to do legal?”, “What if my punch misses?” etc. It becomes more about the “Why” e.g., “Why am I actually here doing this?”, “Why have I been put in this position?”, “Why me?” etc. Although there isn’t the time to answer these “philosophical” questions, if we open the door, they quickly come flooding in, and drown us. I paused for a moment, and then forced myself to act – almost always the best remedy, when you feel yourself hesitating. There’s something – not a lot – to the old adage, the bigger they are the harder they fall, however when big people are drunk, and especially when they’re top-heavy they have trouble recovering their weight. As I approached, hands out in a placating manner, whilst smiling, he took a massive swing at me (so drunk it passed me a good foot/30 centimeter away). As he tried to regain balance, he overcompensated and reached behind to catch himself on two tables, which he did. With his hands occupied supporting himself, I had the opportunity to kick/sweep his feet away from under him. It wasn’t a large fall, but it was a heavy one (a night of drinking adds to the tiredness and fatigue, of such large hits to the body that the ground gives), and it bought me some time; two of the bar staff were now happy to assist me in getting a more compliant patron to the door.  

Getting used to “loneliness” in your training is an essential survival skill – to prevent you from becoming overwhelmed by this if it hits you in a real-life confrontation. An important component of your training, which can help you achieve this is solo training, and the discipline it requires. When you make a decision to train on your own, outside of regular classes, you are making a pact with yourself, that you are the one solely responsible for your survival; that it ultimately rests with you and no one else. These sessions do not have to be long, but they are the most honest training sessions that you’ll take part in, because they only have one purpose, and that is to improve your fighting skills.