Britain's Scariest Bouncer Who Knocked Out Over 1,000 People

Anything Goes with James English

Marcus Redwood recounts his intense 40-year career as one of Britain's most notorious bouncers and security entrepreneurs. He details his tr

Key takeaways

• Marcus Redwood claims involvement in over 3,000 fights and 1,000 knockouts during his career.
• He successfully scaled Mark One Security from a small operation to employing 200 staff members across Kent and Sussex.

Main topics

• Nightclub security and bouncer culture
• The rise of Mark One Security

Notable quotes

When you're going through hell, keep going.

Conclusion

A profound look at how a person can redefine their identity and move f

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:06) You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be. And don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. And boom, we're on. And today's guest, we've got Marcus Redwood. Marcus, how are we? Yeah, not too bad. Not too bad. Listen, good to have you on the show. I know you've run a few podcasts before. but I'll promote your book straight away. This is a new one, Big Guy, the true story of Britain's most notorious bouncer, one man, 3,000 fights, 1,000 knockouts. It's Speaker 2 (0:53) a Speaker 1 (0:53) lot of drama, big man. It's a lot of drama. It's a lot. Where can people buy your Speaker 2 (0:57) book? It's available on Amazon at Waterstones and at Foils. Although I think your best bet is Amazon because a lot of people have been messaging me and said that Waterstones have been out of stock. I don't know if it's out of stock because it's sold out or out of stock because they just haven't bothered putting him in there. Something I've wanted to do for a very long time. And it sort of came about because of the podcast. Yeah. You know, I got contacted by a guy from Manchester who said, you need to write a book. I love your stories. And Speaker 1 (1:26) I said, I Speaker 2 (1:26) want to write a book. Can't find a writer. And he was a writer. Good. So it went from there. So yeah, Mark McLaughlin, his name is. Give him a little shout out. He's done a good job. Speaker 1 (1:33) Before we get into all the madness though. I always like to go back to the start with my guests, get more of a bit of understanding about you, Marcus, where you grew up and how it all began. Speaker 2 (1:42) Right, I was born in Ramsgate, which is a little town, if you don't know where it is, it's very close to Margate. A lot of people know where Margate is, it's seaside down. I was born in Ramsgate, in the back bedroom of a bungalow, Newington Road. And I've lived in that sort of area all of my life. Yeah, I sort of grew up, my parents moved from there to like a little farm place. So I grew up as a kid, really, on this little farm, sort of with animals and, you know, we were sort of hunting and trapping and my dad was sort of like killing everything that we kept and eating it all. And yeah, we were sort of taught all sorts of weird skills as children. Yeah, it wasn't a normal upbringing. How were you at school? I was actually, I was probably a little bit shy in those days, but I was good at school. I was good at me, you know, with all my subjects. I was at the top of most of the classes. Didn't... end well like that though when I got into senior school I had a massive row with my headmaster um threw him over his own desk and um and left uh without taking any exams actually um yeah I'd already done my mocks had a big falling out with him he did something yeah well do you want Speaker 1 (2:48) me Speaker 2 (2:48) to talk about it yeah of course okay um this this was so I was a I said pretty good kid I'm Speaker 1 (2:53) at Speaker 2 (2:53) school I was a little bit rebellious but I wasn't I wasn't terrible but this um where I used to live on this little farm place um To get to school in the early days would be either walking or cycling through a churchyard to get to the school a few miles away where I went to. But as I got older, I bought a little motorbike, a little pop-pop to go to work on, as long as I was doing work experience. Anyway, I'd had a silver racing bike before. The headmaster calls me in one day for a chat, and he says, have you Speaker 1 (3:21) still got Speaker 2 (3:21) that silver racing bike? I said, no. He said, how did you get to work experience now? I said, on a little motor scooter thing. Speaker 1 (3:28) All right, I said, okay, Speaker 2 (3:29) nice to talk to you. And off I went. And I thought, what's a weird conversation with this guy? Next thing you know, the police are around my house because some school kid has attacked two girls in the churchyard who was riding a silver racing bike. So he basically pointed the finger at me, sent the CID to my house to question my parents about would I be the sort of person who would attack little girls. So I lost my temper. I lost my shit. And Monday morning, I went straight into his headmaster's office, banged on the thing. And as he opened it, I launched him across his desk, told him to poke his skull up his rear end, and I left. What did you do after school? I went straight out to work on a council. I worked on a tree gang. So I was a qualified arborist, a tree surgeon. That's what I did for a few years until I had a very nasty motorbike crash. I broke my left leg in 12 places, nearly lost my foot. And when I come out of the hospital and after crutches and traction and God knows what, I started training in the local gym. And I'd already done a bit of boxing when I was a kid. And I started in the gym. I went there just to try and get my legs back to some sort of strength. But a lot of the doorman used to train in that same gym, so I ended up knocking about with some of them. And yeah, I ended up basically being the extra man on some of the doors in Margate. And next thing you know, I'm a full-time doorman. sort of further down the road after owning a gymnasium at one point. That was my dream at the time, to have a gym, but I sort of did that. Then I got a divorce from my wife, and after that packed up, I was in a bed set for two years. Two years in a bed set, sharing a toilet with three other rooms, not very glamorous. Didn't really know what I was going to do with my life. One thing I knew I was good at was being a doorman. So I actually started a company called Mark One Security, and I started it with basically nothing. And that company grew over the years to 200 staff in the end. And I went all through, we worked all the way through Kent and Sussex. So it was quite a big operation in the end and it earned me some very good money. What was the first door you worked on? The very first one was, I was 17. And I actually went, I used to, in those days, underage drinking was sort of pretty rife in a little town like Broadstairs. And there was a pub. There was a pub down the bottom. I'm trying to think of the name of it. Anyway, this little pub. I used to go in there from when I was 15 and have a drink. So I was a regular. So by the time I was 17, I'm in there while not having a drink, and they did like a disco night, and a big fight's kicked off. And I sort of jumped in because I knew the opposite of the owner as well. I jumped in, broke the fight up, threw the people out. And as I walked back in, the owner said to me, he said, you're here every week. He said, how about I give you free beer? He said, and you just do that. So I went, yeah, great. I mean, I thought I had the right result. It was Barnaby Rudge, it was called. And it was Fred and Betty that ran it. But that was my first taste of door work, but I didn't really think of myself as a doorman. It was just free beer for stopping fights. But that was the first thing. And then after my broken leg thing and after my gym, I started at the gym, then that's when I started the real door work with the real doorman over in Margate. And that could be pretty hairy in the summer months. In the winter, it's totally different. But in the summer... Back then, it was a big holiday resort, so you'd get all the coach parties come down. And back in those days, in the 80s, where the football violence was rife. So you would get different coach parties of different type of supporters for different teams. So the clashes on the seafront at Margate would be immense. And you had to very soon get used to fighting with coach parties, which wasn't much fun. What was it like? So you'd done a bit of boxing beforehand? Yeah, I took myself boxing when I was 13 because I got bullied in every school I ever went to. I got bullied in the infant school. I got bullied in junior school. I always managed to get, in the end, I beat the bullies up. But I was quite a shy kid. I wasn't the sort of kid that would go out and start a fight. I've never started a fight in my life. Never, ever. I hate bullies. And yeah, when I was 13, I was getting bullies a lot in the senior school by the older kids. So I started at Broadstairs Boxing Club and I did a couple of years in there and I wasn't a great boxer. I did actually box in a show and that, but I wasn't a great boxer, but I could definitely hit hard and I got quite fit and I got quite useful. So in the end, the next time I got sort of picked on, you know, when I was sort of 14, 15, it Speaker 1 (7:45) didn't end well for the other people. What was it like being in the first scrap and the doze? Speaker 2 (7:50) First scrap on the doors. Speaker 1 (7:52) I don't know. Speaker 2 (7:53) It wasn't that bad. I can't remember the first scrap, really. There's just been so many. Back in those days, it wasn't any odd occasion there was a fight. It was every night. Particularly when I first started work, it was only weekends. So the weekends were really busy, Friday, Saturday nights. And then as the years went on and I started getting bigger clubs to work in, it was six or seven nights a week. And with the agency, when I got the agency and I was expanded that, I mean, I was getting all sorts of troublesome places in all different areas. So I soon got a reputation for the sort of person you could send in to go and, you know, sort that club out, you know, and its problems. Did you love it though? To a point, I sort of enjoyed it. I must've done, but it also was, it was really about the money. It was really something I was just good at doing. And it was, and when the agency came along, that was. I mean, it didn't take long to work out that as a doorman, you can only earn so much. You're only going to get paid a certain level of money, no matter how good you are. But when you've got an agency and you've got your employing other staff and you're making a little bit on everybody, and obviously as that grew, I mean, when I first started, I only used to make two pounds an hour on a person. Say they did a five-hour night, so I make 10 pounds on a man. But then if you had 16 men working on a club in, say, Folkestone, one of my first ones, we probably had 40 shifts during the week. So that was 400 quid. You know, then you multiply that up and you start getting a few more clubs and a few more pubs. I mean, in the end, I was earning, I remember actually driving home one night and I think it was when, I think Tony Blair was the prime minister. He was on 185,000 a year and I was earning more than Tony Blair and I was quite happy about that. Because you were working Speaker 1 (9:32) in security for over 40 years? Yeah, yeah, 40 years. You were also a taxman? Did you tax people? Did Speaker 2 (9:38) I tax Speaker 1 (9:38) people? Yeah. What's that mean? Like going to people and tax them, no? No. You usually do that. Bouncers usually go down that route. Speaker 2 (9:45) This is where I think I'm a little bit different to your regular bouncer. In the sense of like, because I got bullied and treated the way I did when I was growing up, I hated bullies with a passion. I always tried to be very fair with everybody. I mean, I was a bit hot-headed as a younger doorman. I would hold my hands up to that. I was quite quick to anger. But I was never a bully. Whereas as you get older, you get a bit wiser and you tend to find better ways of dealing with things or diffusing things. You talk to people better. You've had more experience. Repetition is the mother of skill, as they say. And the more times you... I mean, let's face it. Most people don't have many fights in their whole life. I was having them so often. They were just routine to me. People now message me and they're like, oh, thanks, that time. Do you remember that time you'd done this and you'd done that and you'd saved me? No, Speaker 1 (10:35) I Speaker 2 (10:35) don't. Speaker 1 (10:36) I Speaker 2 (10:36) don't because there's so many of them. You know, I remember the really, really crazy ones, but most of the normal ones are just everyday stuff. How long did you work in Madgate for? Do you know what? I actually worked the other week. Still working? I wasn't supposed to. They called me out. There's a soul festival on, and it's a soul festival that I've been doing for so long. And they said, what are you doing on the weekend? I said, why? And they're like, yeah, come and work. We've got Big Lloyd working, and Big Lloyd and me used to work together when we first started. And he's 67, and he's still a monster. So he's like, they called us both in. So we're like a couple of old dinosaurs working in this bar. He said, we better stand back to back. I went, why is that? He said, in case we fall over. Speaker 1 (11:15) So he's 67 still doing it. Yeah, and I'm 64 in October. You look great by the way for 64. Speaker 2 (11:22) Actually, I've been ill the last five years. Why? I don't know why. Doctors don't know why. I've had, I've got some sort of, I've just found out last year it's some sort of thyroid related problem. But I started off having heart palpitations. Then it was like numb legs. Then it was breathing problems. And yeah, it's been going on for five years. And I've spent 40,000 quid trying to go into private doctors. I've been to Mexico for stem cells. I've been to Bangkok and seen specialists over there. I've sent blood to America. I've tried everything and no one has got an answer. What about the stem cells? Stem cells, I felt good for about six months. And that's it? And that's it. And it didn't fix the problem. But yeah, I was really, I'm not trying anything. I'm still trying stuff now. Yeah, but good on you for trying things. Speaker 1 (12:05) A remedy? Well, my doctors certainly aren't helping me, that's for sure. Yeah, they don't give a fuck about making Speaker 2 (12:10) money. Absolutely useless. So Speaker 1 (12:12) you started your own agency. How many people did you have working for you? Speaker 2 (12:15) Originally, what I had, when I was living in the bedsit, right, I had a mobile phone and I got these little gold cards made with Mark 1 Security, little plastic cards, like business cards, you know, they were quite posh. Trouble was with them, right, when the police kept raiding people's houses, everyone was chopping their coke up with them. At least I might want to do it again. It wasn't a good thing. Anyway, but no, yeah, sorry. I'm sorry, what was the question again? Speaker 1 (12:38) Yeah, how many did you have? I had six guys. I had six doormen that were out of work, who were good doormen. Speaker 2 (12:44) And I went around for like, I must have gone around knocking on doors for like six months trying to get some work, a contract. And I was just about, I was just about to give up, to be honest. I'd sort of thought, this is probably a stupid idea. And then I'd, the club in Folkestone rang me up, a guy called Jimmy Godden. He owned a rugby club, which in those days, I think it held about 1,500 people. It had a pub, a club, a VIP, a restaurant. It was a very, very nice place. And his whole door team walked out on him. And he rang me on, I think, the Wednesday, and he said, like, I need 16 doorman for this weekend. Have you got them? And I went, yeah, of course I have. And in those days, it was easy because you didn't have licenses. So you could just ring, you could go to the rugby club and get a few, you know, big scrum ass or something, or get a few boxers out the gym or whatever. So I put a ragtag team together for the first week, but we got through it, done a good job. And I worked there myself. And then we started putting it together properly. That was my first contract. And I worked there for a couple of months until I felt it was okay, until it was 100 % and I wanted it. And then we moved on and we started getting other contracts. And then I worked, I was already working for a guy called Frank Thorley, who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. But I worked for him and his son, Philip Thorley, for many years, from when I was the age of 23. and they had a lot of venues. And they were also great business people. They taught me a lot of my sort of business, how can I put it, my mindset in business has come from them. Like, you know, always pay people on time, never owe anyone, never leave any bad debts. Treat your staff right. I mean, they treated us like family. And I always treated my staff like family. You know, I would do anything for my staff, but I expected that from them as well. You know? What makes a good doorman? What makes a good doorman? Well, a really good doorman, an all-rounder. I mean, the thing is, when you put a team together in a big club, it's made up of lots of different people. So you'll want your front of house who can talk to people who are very smart and very polite. you know, and very eloquent. But then you also want, you know, if you've got a big club like that in the team, you want a couple of anchormen. You want a couple of big guys who if, you know, if the shit is the fan, you know that there's going to be some big guys moving in there and dragging people out. But if the whole team is working properly, I mean, everyone should have the same sort of skills, really. Everyone should be able to talk to people. Everyone should know the law. Everybody should, you know, be smart and polite. But not everyone always is, are they? That's why Dorman get a bad name. I mean... You know, I've watched quite a few podcasts from other doormen. I've read quite a few books from other doormen who are, you know, sort of, quote, famous. But I wouldn't want to work with them. I mean, you know, I'm not... I don't know how I should name them. I'd probably upset them. But there's one... I'll just say there's one guy up north, let's say. And in his book, he talks about where he's axe-kicking people in the head. Speaker 1 (15:30) I mean, that's... Speaker 2 (15:33) If you're in the middle of a 50-man scrap and there's only two of you, yeah, you'll pretty much do anything you can to get out of it and survive. But if it's a one-on-one scrap, as soon as someone's unconscious, they're really no threat anymore, are they? I know I say in my book I've knocked out over 1,000 people, and I'm sure I have. But once I've either choked someone out or knocked someone out or whatever, I don't continue it. I don't continue to inflict pain on them. I don't jump up and down on them to make sure they're finished. I mean, normally I'd just ask someone to leave. That's the easiest way, isn't it? Could you leave? And if they won't leave, then you've got to restrain them and leave. If they struggle, then you've got to restrain them harder. If they start fighting back or they pick up bottles or knives or whatever and attack you, then, yeah, then all bets are off. You can do what you blimmin' want, really. Because you're a big unit now. What were you at, your biggest? At my biggest, I was about 19 and a half stone. I was huge. Yeah. There's a picture of me in the back of the book. So it was easy to... floor people about then? I mean, I could, I used to pick people up, I could pick someone up with one hand by the neck and just, I'd say a 13 or 14 stone guy, I'd have him off the floor with one hand. I mean, bigger guys took maybe two hands. But I could, I could press, I mean, we would, I was training with Big Lloyd back then and we could military press like 130 kilos above our head for reps. So, I mean, if I could do that for reps, I can pick someone up and just throw them. Or just... Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, I'm not saying that it's not everything being big or strong, but it certainly helps. How many doors did you work on? Oh God, I've never even tried to count it up. Too many? So many. I mean, even if you, when I say I had 200 staff working for me, 200 staff at any one time over a 40 year period. So you think there's thousands of staff. So, I mean, I mean, put it this way, if I'm trying to count up anything, I had six super clubs with Luminar Leisure. They were the biggest contracts you used to get in those days. So all of those were like, you know, the giant sort of clubs, sort of anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people. Then I had all the Frank Thorley stuff, which was quite a lot. I mean, he had two or three nightclubs, a whole range of pubs. Yeah, Speaker 1 (17:42) I Speaker 2 (17:42) had all sorts. I can't, honestly, hundreds of Speaker 1 (17:45) clubs and pubs. So if you're somewhere, a venue that has 2,000 people, how many bouncers would you need? Normally, most of them were sort of Speaker 2 (17:52) trying to get it to 1 per 100. Some would go a bit more and go 1 per 75. But it depended on the venue. I mean, it depends on the layout of a venue as well. I mean, you know, some venues, you've got a very convenient layout. It's dormant friendly. You know, you might have a front door and then it goes straight into the reception and club. Nice and simple. But then you might have another one where the front door's down on the street level and then there's two flights of stairs to get up to the entrance. You know, or there's like Escape Nightclub in Margate used to have three floors. So that would hold 1,500 people. Now, we used to put about 12, 12 doormen on that. Speaker 1 (18:24) And you needed 12. So you had 200 doormen on your books? Yeah. Speaker 1 (18:30) How do you control them? By being a little bit worse than all Speaker 2 (18:34) of them, if you know what I mean. Yeah, of Speaker 1 (18:36) course. Speaker 2 (18:37) I mean, put it this way. You're working with, you've got, I would say most Dorman, not all Dorman, but most Dorman are sort of alpha male type people. So you've got to be the leader of the pack, if you like. You've got to have their respect. I mean, the way I did that was I did my job properly. You know, if I tell you, I was working, I took it seriously. I turned up on time. I turned up, you know, smart. I was polite. If there was a troublesome place, I would go there and work with those door team. And I'd work there until I thought it was okay. I'd switch, I'd swap people around sometimes. And, you know, the other thing is, you don't put all your good eggs in one basket. So, you know, if you, let's say you've got 200 door staff, but let's say you've got 20 super outstanding guys, you're not going to put like 10 of them in one club, are you? You know what I mean? You're going to try and spread it out. Like I said about making a team up. And the good thing in the old days was when you had a team of, say, 10 or 12 guys, if you got a new doorman who had got no experience, then, whereas today, they'll end up working on a pub on their own and they don't know what they're doing. But back in those days, I would put a new guy in an established team. So I'd put him in there so he could learn off the other guys. So, you know, all he had to do was follow their lead. And after a few months with them, he'd be as good as them because he'd see how they dealt with things. He wouldn't have to guess. He would know. But then obviously that's if your guys are doing what they should be doing. So that's why, I mean, I used to also, back in the day when I was at the peak of it, I used to visit every major venue once a week myself. So whether that, I mean, on some nights I would have to visit maybe three venues, but I would stick my head in the door and I'd speak to the head doorman, the managers. I'd have a little wander around. I'd even talk to the customers. What are the doorman like in here? You know, I want to get feedback. I want to know everything's right. I used to put, I used to have folders. I used to put like these big folders with all of our safety stuff and our first aid stuff and that. It's sort of regulations anyway. But I used to have a, Speaker 1 (20:29) I used to put a Speaker 2 (20:29) thing in the back of there. So there was like a complaints form. So if the manager wasn't happy about something, all he had to do was email with the form with what he wasn't happy about, whether it was the uniforms, the timekeeping, any particular members of staff. And it would be addressed straight away. It's in my own interest to address it. What about the birds? The birds? Oh, that was an added bonus when you're young, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, not so much as you get older. But it got me in a lot of trouble when I was young, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm on my third marriage. Speaker 1 (20:57) Yeah, the birds seem to love doormen. They seem to love, not all of them, but you know yourself. Speaker 2 (21:02) I must admit, yeah, it was quite fun being a... It was fun being young and single. Speaker 1 (21:08) Yeah, my dad, he was a bouncer. He was a doorman in Victoria's nightclub in Glasgow. Very popular, all the football players. It was Cotton Club beforehand, then Victoria's. There was an old guy, he's old now, Peter Watson, he was a family friend. He's still working the doors in his 70s now. Jesus. Back then, like you say, but the bouncers, there was a place called the Savoy and the bouncers would just beat fuck out of you. not just one, but five or six on someone, and I'm talking down the lane, and kick fuck out them and just leave them. There was no restrictions, there was no badges, and you knew not to fuck with them. Bouncers back then you didn't fuck with, because they were proper, like you say, 19 stone, 20 stone, and they would fucking leather you. I worked, the first guys I worked Speaker 2 (21:52) with, not Big Lloyd, he was always different, but there was two guys, Metal Mickey, Mickey Davey his name was really, and Graham Olive, and they were huge. Mickey was fairly big, but they were both black belt karate guys, and they were both very capable guys in a fight. But they were both bullies, and they were both nasty. And they wouldn't just knock you out. They would knock you out and then stamp on your knees and elbows and do all sorts of horrible shit to you. I mean, you wake up, you wouldn't be able to move. You wouldn't be able to stand up. I mean, I've met Mickey. I've seen him take a bat to people's heads, and I had to drag him off of a guy one night. I mean, that in itself is quite a funny story. Speaker 2 (22:29) We finished a bar called Green's Wine Bar in Margate and we'd finish that wine bar and then we'd go on to a nightclub to work afterwards. So we were driving from, we had two or three cars full of doormen driving from one place to another. And this guy who's obviously down for the day on a coach park or wherever, he's run out in the road and kicked Metal Mickey's car, which was a nice little 202 BMW at the time. So he's pulled up, jumped out and chased this guy up the high street with a bat in his hand. The guy obviously doesn't come from that area and he'd run down a dead end alley. And he's fucked. I mean, so there's a group of us sort of, we're following him up, but I'm thinking, oh no, he's got him in his alley, he's going to hurt him. And he did, he went over to him. The guy sort of went and put his arm up to defend himself and Mickey's first swing has broken his arm. Second one, he's knocked him out. And then he's continued hitting him. And I thought he was going to kill the guy. So I grabbed, I was only a young doorman at the time. I think I was only like probably 21. I grabbed hold of Mickey who was probably five, six years older than me. And I grabbed him and just pulled him off. And I was like, leave him. You're