Just another night on the steps...

I arrived at work promptly at eight thirty tonight, driving from the village I spoke about in my previous post. As I walked down the steps (The club I worked at tonight is one of my two regular venues, one of which the steps go up to the front door, the other of which, the one where I worked tonight the steps go down to a basement type venue) and into the venue I felt fairly relaxed, not at all worried about the night ahead. I should elaborate in mentioning that this particular venue is a gentlemans club and so the clientelle we usually get is never particularly a problem, and when they do insist on being escorted from the venue with reasonable force they rarely cause much contention. Tonight seemed to be ever so slightly different.

With the run up to the event that everyone seems to enjoy and remember due to the fat guy in a red suit rather than the thinner guy with longer hair, anyway, at this time of year with many staff parties and people that usually don't drink so much, drinking so much there are the inevitable idiots causing situations on my steps. Tonight however, the particular said idiot turned out to be a vaguely handy off duty member of door staff.

If you're reading this and you're a member of doorstaff, you'll fully understand the predicament, and the embarrasment of the entire situation. Firstly, as an off duty member of doorstaff he should understand our situation and sympathise with us, rather than creating a situation.

The guy in question was asked extremely politely to leave the venue (the reason though irrelivant, was because he had touched one of the dancers twice, and warned twice), which eventually he did after swearing at me in a foreign language and flashing his SIA badge. The conversation from my side was extremely polite with a possible overusage of the title 'sir'. When he got to the bottom of the stairs I could see the cogs in his evidentially small brain working and he decided that for me to get him up those stairs without him having a good chance of giving me a headache would be an extremely difficult task. So at the bottom of the stairs I asked him ever so eloquently to please walk up the stairs, at this point his girlfriend came out to the door too, the rest of his party still inside. I asked him no less than 3 times to please walk up his stairs, at which point I had the task of forcing him. This is when the difference between a punter and a member of doorstaff becomes a serious concern for me, as an experienced member of door staff should know most restraint moves, most techniques, most psychological techniques and the level of force that we can legally use.

I decided to go for an illegal move, a decision to which I came to the conclusion would be one of the only ways of getting the guy up the stairs without a significant risk of phyiscal harm to myself. The exact move I used is irrelivant, but it worked half way up the stairs.

I'm not embarrased to admit that at this point I came unstuck. I forgot to watch my surroundings. From behind me, a complete judas attack, his girlfriend got an excellent swing at the back of my head, always, always watch your surroundings is apparently the moral to this story. At this point my earlier requested assistance arrived and helped me move the member of off-duty doorstaff up the stairs, at which point the rest of his group came flying through the door with such force that I slipped down the dripping wet stairs and ended up smashing my head against one of the concrete steps.

At this point I then realised it was 2 of us, against 8 of them. Doorstaff on Doorstaff. Embarrasing for them more than us, since if I went out on a staff party with my team from my usual venue (up the stairs) I would be highly embarrased if they kicked off with another team. Luckily for myself and my single colleague their head doorman had the same thought and told his team to stop being wankers.

Due to the significant launch down the stairs and the skull smashing against an extremely hard surface the venue manager was very adament that I get checked out and radio'd through for a paramedic, who suggested that I should head to A+E.

I did realise that I was well overdue a visit....