Door Wars

The men who ran the doors of Britain's nightclubs, and the wars fought over who stood on them.

  1. Wigan: Mick Lyons and the 'Firm' · In the 1990s one man dominated door security in Wigan. Mick Lyons, a former miner, had worked the doors since the 1970s, and at his peak he controlled more than 100 doormen. Contracts, venues and territory sat under his
  2. Salford: Paul Massey v Paul Doyle · Paul Massey and Paul Doyle were once like brothers. In the early 1980s they fought older villains together for respect and reputation. By the early 1990s they were on opposite sides of a war over the doors of Salford and
  3. London: Cass Pennant v the South London Gangsters · Cass Pennant stepped out of the Albany nightclub in Deptford, South London, and something felt wrong. For two decades he had moved through two of Britain's most violent worlds, football hooliganism and nightclub security
  4. Essex: Lew Yates v Essex's Deadliest Gangsters · Lew Yates was built like a tank: short, but broad and thickset, with powerful shoulders and legs like tree trunks. He was a northern powerhouse who could fight, and as a northerner working the doors down south he needed
  5. Newcastle: Geordie Gangsters v the Bouncers · Viv Graham was five foot ten and built like a bodybuilder, but what made him dangerous was his speed. His hands were unnaturally fast, and one punch was usually enough. In the late 1980s he worked the doors of Newcastle,
  6. Cliff Fields: Britain's Hardest Doorman · Cliff Field was a man mountain: six foot seven, more than 20 stone, with a right hand that could knock out a bull. In the early 1980s he fought Lenny McLean twice in unlicensed fights, and both times McLean was carried o
  7. John Anderson: Coventry's Hardest Doorman v a Giant Rugby Player · In the Coventry of the 1980s, the film says, one doorman stood above the rest. John "Awesome" Anderson kept the city's clubs and bars as safe as they could be by taking on some of its toughest men, and he was the mentor
  8. Geoff Thompson and the Coventry Pub Bully · Geoff Thompson spent years on the doors of Coventry and became one of the city's best-known doormen, a man who studied violence as closely as he practised it. He was taught by John Anderson, the man the film calls the nu
  9. Basildon Dean: Bouncing, Debt Collecting and Door Fights (Interview) · Basildon Dean makes no claim to be a gangster. He is a Basildon man who spent years on the doors of a superclub he describes as explosive all the time, then went into debt collecting for builders who had been left unpaid
  10. Yardies v Essex Doormen: A Night of Terror
  11. Essex Bullies v Russian Andre
  12. Stoke's N40 v Blackpool's Hardest Doormen