“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did."
Former Blues hooligan Barrington Patterson lifts the lid on his extraordinary life in a new biography. The Brummie hardman talked about his colourful past of soccer violence, boxing champions and the Gladiators to MIKE LOCKLEY.“I was born to fight,” growled Birmingham’s most notorious soccer hooligan, Barrington ‘One-Eyed Baz’ Patterson, his gold tooth glinting as the scowl succumbed to a smirk.
“I came out of my mother’s womb fighting,” the Handsworth hardman insisted, stretching his bulky, 18 stone frame in a show of indifference.
“I’m not the kind of person who walks away. If you don’t want trouble, don’t lay it on me.”
The 47-year-old former leading light in Birmingham City’s feared Zulu hooligan crew has paid for his penchant for punch-ups, with a record so crammed with violent offences it’s a veritable criminal double album.
“I’ve lost count, to be honest,” the nightclub bouncer muttered with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “Maybe 20 - all for violence, but none football related.”
He stared into space for a second, wringing his shovel-sized hands for inspiration before apologising. “Oh yeah - there’s one robbery... and a burglary.”
“Am I violent?” he hissed, stung by the enquiry, his heavy gold chain swaying in a show of disapproval. “Don’t ask other people what I’m like, ask me what I’m like.”
I pointed out, diplomatically, I was asking him.
Barrington slumped back in his chair and mulled over the question. “I am what I am.
“But I don’t regret anything. The only thing I regret in life is having five kids by five different women.”
The bonds that tie thrice-wed Barrington to his extended family are loose. “Am I a grandfather?” he mused. “Not to my knowledge.”
Barrington, who channelled his blood-lust into a highly successful kickboxing and cage-fighting career - he held world titles in both, has paid for the self-imposed stains on his character.
The man who bared his soul on TV hoodlum series, Danny Dyer’s Deadliest Men was within a whisker of exploding on our screens as a Gladiator: one of the muscle-bound, leotard clad athletes who pummelled contestants in the popular 90s show of the same name.
Possibly for the best. Get clobbered with one of those oversized cottonbuds by Barrington and you’d have ringing in your ears for a year.
“Your past always catches up with you,” he sighed. “I went to the Gladiators audition and they said I was ideal, the right build and everything. It was done and dusted, they said. All they had to do was a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check.
“I knew that was it straight away.” It was.
The one-man army has again been thrust into the limelight, thanks to his new autobiography, One Eyed Baz. It has been penned by reformed West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant.
The tome is launched at Birmingham’s Irish Centre on Saturday night.
“It doesn’t glorify what I did,” he was at pains to point out. “It’s my journey.”
Stubbing a finger in my direction he announced: “I did what I did with one eye - that’s the story.
“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did, but I have a story to tell. There is more to life than being a football thug.”
Contrary to Second City folklore, Barrington did not lose his optic on the terraces or in the street. It’s a war-wound received when, as a seven-year-old, his sister threw a can at him.
Yet despite the handicap, he fought around the globe in martial arts tournaments, facing the very best - including current world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko - and lifting a raft of titles.
It’s the handicap that shaped this brutal being. “It made we what I am today,” he said. “At school they called me cyclops, stuff like that, and I’d do battle with them.”
Barrington simply never stopped battling. The self-styled Handsworth ‘rude boy’ so impressed a band of Birmingham City skinheads called the Apex crew, they invited him to a match. A clear case of, if you can’t beat ‘em, ask them to join you’.
“The first time I went to Blues - 1982 or 83 - I didn’t know anyone. I was looking around thinking, where are the brothers?’’
Barrington’s thirst for violent action soon earned him admirers. “The size of me,” he put forward as a probable reason for his popularity, “people do feel intimidated by me. I stand out a mile.”
He speaks matter-of-factly about those shameful years of soccer mob rule. “We earned our reputation. There were people like Millwall, they thought they were top, but we wanted to be the top hooligans. You are there with your friends and you are outnumbered 20 to one and you think, ‘I ain’t running nowhere’.
“You get up in the morning, you want to go to that town and you want to take the p*** for the day. You want to take over that town for the day. But we didn’t just beat anyone with a Liverpool scarf - the lads know who the lads are.
“At the time, it was all about Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.”
“I got done a couple of times,” he conceded.
Leeds and Millwall’s thugs provided particularly tough competition, though Barrington singled out West Ham’s infamous Inter City Firm as, in his words, the best: in the eyes of the general public, the worst.
Scuffles? There were more than a few, though the mid-80s St Andrew’s pitch invasions that marred matches against Leeds and West Ham stand out.
Barrington clings to a perceived code of conduct among thugs and laments the behaviour of the new breed of bad boys. “There are young people calling themselves Zulus who are tarnishing the name. They are ruthless young ****ers. Years ago, you saw an old person, you stopped what you were doing and let them go past.”
At the end of our interview, he encased my limp hand in a vice-like grip, looked deep into my frightened eyes and demanded: “I didn’t sound like a t**t, did I?”
That’s a question linked to diet. Say ‘yes’ and you’ll be tucking into hospital food for the forseeable future.
Possibly for the best. Get clobbered with one of those oversized cottonbuds by Barrington and you’d have ringing in your ears for a year.
“Your past always catches up with you,” he sighed. “I went to the Gladiators audition and they said I was ideal, the right build and everything. It was done and dusted, they said. All they had to do was a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check.
“I knew that was it straight away.” It was.
The one-man army has again been thrust into the limelight, thanks to his new autobiography, One Eyed Baz. It has been penned by reformed West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant.
The tome is launched at Birmingham’s Irish Centre on Saturday night.
“It doesn’t glorify what I did,” he was at pains to point out. “It’s my journey.”
Stubbing a finger in my direction he announced: “I did what I did with one eye - that’s the story.
“I was a football thug. Some people are murderers and rapists, but they don’t admit it. I am not ashamed of what I did, but I have a story to tell. There is more to life than being a football thug.”
Contrary to Second City folklore, Barrington did not lose his optic on the terraces or in the street. It’s a war-wound received when, as a seven-year-old, his sister threw a can at him.
Yet despite the handicap, he fought around the globe in martial arts tournaments, facing the very best - including current world heavyweight boxing champ Vitali Klitschko - and lifting a raft of titles.
It’s the handicap that shaped this brutal being. “It made we what I am today,” he said. “At school they called me cyclops, stuff like that, and I’d do battle with them.”
Barrington simply never stopped battling. The self-styled Handsworth ‘rude boy’ so impressed a band of Birmingham City skinheads called the Apex crew, they invited him to a match. A clear case of, if you can’t beat ‘em, ask them to join you’.
“The first time I went to Blues - 1982 or 83 - I didn’t know anyone. I was looking around thinking, where are the brothers?’’
Barrington’s thirst for violent action soon earned him admirers. “The size of me,” he put forward as a probable reason for his popularity, “people do feel intimidated by me. I stand out a mile.”
He speaks matter-of-factly about those shameful years of soccer mob rule. “We earned our reputation. There were people like Millwall, they thought they were top, but we wanted to be the top hooligans. You are there with your friends and you are outnumbered 20 to one and you think, ‘I ain’t running nowhere’.
“You get up in the morning, you want to go to that town and you want to take the p*** for the day. You want to take over that town for the day. But we didn’t just beat anyone with a Liverpool scarf - the lads know who the lads are.
“At the time, it was all about Saturday, Saturday, Saturday.”
“I got done a couple of times,” he conceded.
Leeds and Millwall’s thugs provided particularly tough competition, though Barrington singled out West Ham’s infamous Inter City Firm as, in his words, the best: in the eyes of the general public, the worst.
Scuffles? There were more than a few, though the mid-80s St Andrew’s pitch invasions that marred matches against Leeds and West Ham stand out.
Barrington clings to a perceived code of conduct among thugs and laments the behaviour of the new breed of bad boys. “There are young people calling themselves Zulus who are tarnishing the name. They are ruthless young ****ers. Years ago, you saw an old person, you stopped what you were doing and let them go past.”
At the end of our interview, he encased my limp hand in a vice-like grip, looked deep into my frightened eyes and demanded: “I didn’t sound like a t**t, did I?”
That’s a question linked to diet. Say ‘yes’ and you’ll be tucking into hospital food for the forseeable future.
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