Any OCUK doorstaff?

omgitsdavie

omgitsdavie

omgitsdavie

Associate
Joined
7 Feb 2010
Posts
55
Location
Jolly ol Stoke
Anyone here currently work/worked on the doors?

a Few nights back there was a particularly nasty brawl that erupted outside our venue (luckily none of them had been inside) which resulted in one lad getting beaten to the floor and kicked in the head. I managed to get behind the guy doing the kicking and get my arm round his chest/neck and get a good hold of him. I wasnt constricting his breathing, and he wasnt struggling - he knew that if he struggled i was in a position to clamp down on him immediately and so just stood passivley while the police arrived. Luckily they were only 50 or so yards up the street. As expected they came round asking for a statement later on after my shift. I got in the van and started reciting the incident when the officer made the remark... "i saw that you had him round the throat, but for this once ill let that go" like wtf? Ive just seen him kick somebody in the head - im hardly going to ask him to hold my hand and be a good little boy?! I asked her exactly what im meant to do next time - she didnt really have a reply for me. I just told her that i wont be getting involved next time. Realistically id probably do the same again, i can NOT stand to see someone who is clearly down getting stomped/kicked, but its really frustrating to have the finger pointed at you and someone to imply you acted out of turn when realistically it was the only way i could intervene but safeguard my own well-being at the same time



How do you feel about the industry in general? What about the police and their attitude towards door staff? In the last 3 months ive been threatened with a stanley knife and heard of at least 5 other incidents where doorstaff have come up against knives, bats, brass knuckles and even a claw hammer. Given the size of Stoke on Trents Hanley nightlife (consisting of about 7 bars in an area no bigger than 200sqm) the amout of incidents its ridiculous. We even had a guys nose get bitten off by his MATE 3 weeks ago? For the pittance that doorstaff get paid now i think its about time i knocked it on the head personally.
 
Aren't you supposed to have some training?

one of the doormen where my stepson works got let go because he just battered any "hard men" trying to start trouble lol
 
UncleRuckus said:
I found most doormen quite into taking advantage of underage girls and being fat pussies.
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LOL.

I've come across very few doormen who aren't immediately irritating, jumped up monkeys looking to give somebody a hiding for the sake of it. But then that speaks more about the quality of the places I've frequented in my past than about the profession itself.
 
From my experience - from clubbing rather than working in that industry - the police will often pickup on that (they are almost obliged to) but nothing will actually come of it unless your constantly reported for abusing your position, etc. so just nod and agree or whatever and get on with life.

I've found the police response to this kind of stuff kind of curious - when they've turned up after something has happened even when door staff/other staff, clubbers are saying person x is an innocent victim, etc. they've not infrequently been somewhat antagonising to both or the wrong party.
 
was it a real copper or a pcso as iv had some right comical responces from pcso's about what is the correct way to retrain someone who lets be honest is one good boot away from committing murder.

as for the training comment being taught holds in a class room and having to deal with people in the real world are two VERY different things.
 
MrMoonX said:
Doormen and trained chimpanzees have a lot in common, most of them are steroid gym monkeys
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This.

A lot of doormen are annoying, arrogant, rude and obnoxious just because they can be and often have a holier-than-thou attitude. Some are no better than the people they are there to prevent causing trouble and in many cases are the main cause of trouble themselves.

Some are good people and do a fine job, however. Just seems there are a lot of the not so nice ones :)
 
Personal experience is for every decent, helpful and reasonable doorman there are 9 morons ruining his rep.

Bar the occasional decent one (tend to be older heads who aren't attempting to look like Arnie) the rest are either spoiling for a fight or... Well actually the rest all seem to look for a reason to start a punch up.

They make up rules as they go along, any like muppets and generally cause bother as equally often as they prevent it. Shame that the few decent blokes get marred by the moronic majority but that's life :p
 
Some comical responses already, I must admit i was expecting them. To a certain extent some of the responses are valid, but like in every occupation you get good and bad examples. Admittedly you do get a lot of the idiots wanting to get into door work largely because they see it as a way of getting paid to "fight n look ard" which isnt really what im about. Im not really interested in starting a keyboard war trying to justify the actions of other doorstaff ive never had dealings with. As for some of the comments, i can take them on the chin, some of them actually made me chuckle so feel free to keep them rolling :)


Yes, there is some "training" and i use that term very loosely. The course delivered is useful if you're attempting to control a 5ft5 9 stone student who has had a few too many and lost control of most of his/her bodily functions. A coke fueled 6 foot 16 stone guy set on smearing the contents of someones skull down the road isnt really covered, and as much as i would like it, the "cross body hold" would serve only to further annoy someone who is already wound up. Given the situation, i think i acted in a way that ensured my own safety, and stopped the attack on the already unconscious guy on the ground. I understand that a lot of you poking fun have probably never been faced with a situation like that, feel free to look at it from my perspective.

It was a real copper who gave me my telling off lol, we dont really see many pcso's on the town shift anymore. There were two officers the other side of the road who basically saw it start to unfold and then wandered off up the street, within 30 seconds the 2 groups were well into it..so hurrah to the boys in blue for that one lol. I swear they look away sometimes hoping to avoid the paperwork :P
 
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omgitsdave, you'l never change peoples attitudes especially on here drunken people know best after all :p

as for what the cops did id have had a go at them afterwards and asked why they walked away from an obvious situation kicking off. as they are there to keep people safe, that's not your job. as after all your not insure off of club premises so if you get injured there's a good chance you'l be out of pocket if your off work for a while. something a lot of people dont seem to understand and that includes the police sadly.
 
Oh im well aware of the attitudes and egos that accompany this place GAC, if you wanna get along you gotta go along etc etc :P

Again its a catch 22. Ive forwarded complaints to the licensing liaison officer on more than one occasion where imo officers have failed to perform their duty and let things spiral out of control, it just ends up with you and your venue being persecuted. I could write a book on the amount of times ive seen coppers pummel the living daylights out of someone or turn a blind eye to situations that obviously need their attention.
 
Unfortunately you would never be able to do this job properly if you stuck to what we get taught in the training, and coppers like to make sure we know our place when they see one of us restraining someone it would need 3 coppers to do.
 
omgitsdavie said:
Again its a catch 22. Ive forwarded complaints to the licensing liaison officer on more than one occasion where imo officers have failed to perform their duty and let things spiral out of control, it just ends up with you and your venue being persecuted. I could write a book on the amount of times ive seen coppers pummel the living daylights out of someone or turn a blind eye to situations that obviously need their attention.
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yeah we had that a bit in the last place i worked. the police and council had us listed as a drugs and under age venue for 3 years. best thing is on all the raids and undercover op's they found nothing wrong. out of all the clubs now closed that got closed due to the owners running it in to the ground rather than the licence being taken off it.


tom_e said:
Unfortunately you would never be able to do this job properly if you stuck to what we get taught in the training, and coppers like to make sure we know our place when they see one of us restraining someone it would need 3 coppers to do.
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yeah when i did my course recently to get re badged again i couldn't stop giggling when we got shown the official way to do things, i doubt il ever use any of the holds we had to demonstrate as they just seemed so ineffective.
 
I think it must be very hard job, having to face physical agression on a daily basis with the only tools being restraint and conversing with them.
 
Hyburnate said:
Honestly, are you SIA approved??
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To be fair, being SIA approved doesn't really mean much - all it really is is some Conflict Management along with basic self-defense and retraining techniques.

At the end of the day, any doorman getting into potential trouble for the techniques they use (whatever they may be...) would use the "I just did as I was taught/instructed" line.
 
tom_e said:
Unfortunately you would never be able to do this job properly if you stuck to what we get taught in the training, and coppers like to make sure we know our place when they see one of us restraining someone it would need 3 coppers to do.
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That's because using three officers is the safest way to restrain someone, usually head and one on each arm, it's impossible to safely restrain someone on your own, you could cause serious injuries to the person being restrained :rolleyes:
 
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