Читать книгу One-Eyed Baz - The Story of Barrington 'Zulu' Patterson, One of Britain's Deadliest Men - Barrington Patterson & Cass Pennant - Страница 11

Todd: Barrington’s always been like a human version of a ‘staff’, a Staffordshire bull terrier. You’ll get a lot of dogs that’ll fight if they’re under pressure, but the staff was bred to fight and with Barrington it’s the same, he’s just always liked fighting. From the age of 16, when I met him, we had a couple of lads in the firm that could have a good old fight but no one was like Barrington. He had no fear, not even of the police, he just didn’t care! We were kids at the time, growing up, sometimes we’d have trouble with girls’ parents and they’d come down. They were big, strapping blokes, but, as soon as they stepped up to Barrington, me and Rupert would look at each other, put our hands over our mouths and say, ‘I don’t think this geezer realises what he’s let himself in for!’ A lot of the time people would come down for Barrington with weapons and he would take the weapon off them and beat them. Don’t get me wrong: he’s a lovely guy and he’s got a big heart and he’s a very good friend to have. But he’s a very, very bad enemy to have. Before Barrington was onside with us in our firm, he came from the ghetto with a predominantly Asian firm: a few Chinese, a few blacks, including a bloke called Thomas Coley. As soon as him and Thomas came into town all the boys knew that the Handsworth Wanderers were here. I think the only words I can remember Barrington saying at the time were, ‘Do you want a fight?’ LOL! Nothing else! He’d look at you with his eye and say, ‘D’you wanna fight?’

Rupert: In the early eighties, there was a big black community in Handsworth, but there was a big Indian community as well.

Todd: You could say that at the time Handsworth was a bit of a criminal community like many areas in Birmingham, but a lot of people would turn around and say, ‘What are you putting Handsworth down for?’ I suppose it comes down to the circles that you move in, not the area you’re from. In Handsworth, there were more blacks than other areas; where I came from it was pretty much 50 per cent black/50 per cent white. Where Barrington came from it was 80 per cent black/20 per cent white, so when you’ve got black around black it makes you more ‘urban’.

Rupert: I lived in a white area, in Quinton. At that time we were still at school; the first day I went into that playground and said my name, it was like BANG! I remember a day when we went to a Birmingham game; me and Barrington were there and this was before the Zulus and all that lot. That was the day I saw the change in our generation coming through, because all the guys older than us were white guys.

Todd: And the funny thing about it is that when we came into town, as 15-year-olds, the first thing we did was stamp out the racism that was around in the early eighties and there was a lot of it about. A lot of people had to be put in their places as times were changing and we were helping them change. Barrington was in the ghetto at the time, knocking someone else’s head off – thank God for that! As we got into the mods and rockers scene, that’s when Barrington came along and we used to have some good battles; in those days, there would be a good few hundred of us. There were a few of us who were tight-knit, 10 to 15 of us who were just the firm on our own and that’s when Barrington came into it. We had several names before we got named the Townies – like Rudies, Tiger Posse, Nigger Squad. But when I wasn’t in town people used to say, ‘Watch out for the Townies, if you’re in town you’ll get robbed’ – not realising I was a Townie.

I can remember a time when we were walking through Handsworth and Barrington looks across the road and sees this guy. He says, ‘That guy over there used to bully me when I was at school,’ and he hadn’t seen him since then. But obviously since then his confidence had built up. He walks over to the guy, who was several years older than him, and says, ‘Oi, pussy! D’you remember me? D’you remember you used to bully me at school?’

And the guy’s looked at Barrington and I think he could smell the fierceness of him. He just scurried on as fast as he could!

When I was a kid at school I did get bullied over my eye, but years later I’d bump into certain people and give them a slap for it. That’s how long I hold a grudge – for years.