This book is dedicated to my late mother, Bridget Doyle, my late father Patrick Doyle, my late brother Edward Doyle, my sister and brother Bridget and Declan, my fiancée Samantha Cartwright, my uncle John Derwin, my friend and loyal supporter Desi Clifton, my coach Ralph Farquarson, my friends Graham Petrie, David O’Connor, Bryan Vernum, David Chubb, Paul Jones, Nigel Perry, Wayne Bernstein, Richard Hopkins, WUMA president Danny Ryan, Stewart Newport, Ralf Laue and Dean Gould, Alan Ashes – Senior Team Leader of the World Association of Special Forces. Also, to the army regiments I served with and was attached to: A Company Royal Fusiliers Reserve Regiment Birmingham, 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment, 23 SAS Reserve Midlands Regiment, Royal Auxiliary Reserves Units 4624 and 504 Infantry Squadron. Leon Hickman of the Birmingham Evening Mail, and Carl Chin, Publisher and Professor of History at Birmingham University.
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CONTENTS
1 Title Page
3 Chapter 1 ATTACK!
4 Chapter 2 BRUISER
5 Chapter 3 ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES
6 Chapter 4 HEADBANGER
7 Chapter 5 THE RED BERET
8 Chapter 6 GOING THE EXTRA MILE
9 Chapter 7 TO SURVIVE IS TO WIN
10 Chapter 8 FIT TO FIGHT
11 Chapter 9 BEWARE OF SMALL MEN
12 Chapter 10 EXPLOSIVE POWER
13 Chapter 11 FITNESS AND ENDURANCE
14 Chapter 12 STRENGTH AND STAMINA
15 Chapter 13 BRAINS AS WELL AS BRAWN
16 Chapter 14 TOUGH AT THE TOP
17 Chapter 15 25 NOVEMBER 2001
18 Copyright
A REGULAR EVENING. I’m driving down an ordinary street in the suburbs of Birmingham, coming back from a training session at my gym. I’ve been teaching the martial arts to a group of students and I’m cruising along, my mind on a self-protection course I’m giving the following week at the local adult education centre. Little do I know, I’m about to put my years of training and experience into practice.
Ahead, I can just make out a white car. There are four black guys standing there. Big guys. Tall and big. They flash me down. I decide they must know me from somewhere. Probably one of the local boxing or martial-arts clubs I train at. I pull over. Just as I stop, one of the guys comes running over to me. I can see he’s well over six foot. And I can see I don’t know him from Adam. By this time the guy is at my window, and so are the others. One of them opens my car door and grabs my arm. ‘Get out of the car, quick!’ he barks at me.
Well, I’m my own man, always have been, and I tell him where to go. But he’s got hold of me and he’s pulling my arm. Now, all my natural instincts rise up, and I start punching and kicking out. At the same time I’m out of the car as fast as I can be, so I can have a proper go at this guy. Two more men come at me, then another. Something flashes, glints. But I’m busy; my mind is elsewhere, the adrenalin is flowing. At first I don’t feel anything. You don’t when you’ve got eight arms coming at you.
I’m still battling with them when I see one of the guys is wielding a knife. Another has a Stanley knife and he’s shoved it into the calf of my leg. The first guy jumps into my car. I can hear him shouting, ‘I can’t start it! I can’t start it!’ It must be the cut-out switch. No time to lose. I run over and kick the car door, trapping the man’s head between the roof and the side door. I’m angry I’ve dented my door but it’s better than seeing the car disappear down the road.
I turn and run back to the other guys, shouting, ‘Come on then!’ But I can see they’re starting to flap. They’re not ready for this kind of confrontation: a driver ready to go for it. Someone says, ‘Let’s get the hell out of it, quick!’ I’m still putting up a fight as the four blokes run away. Four guys don’t bother me. I’m doing what I have to do. I’m not going anywhere.
Funny thing was, there were witnesses to all of this. Grown men, standing there, looking out of the windows of their houses. When the fight had finished, these people went back to their armchairs and sat back down to watch their TVs. Not that I needed any help with the situation. But it would have been OK by me if someone had phoned the police. No one did. Turns out later, in one of the police statements, that these respectable householders thought I was messing about with those guys, having a laugh.
I reckon it was a cop-out. People don’t want to get involved, don’t want to know. They want to protect themselves. Don’t tell me you can’t see from your window who’s messing about and who isn’t. I didn’t need their help. All I’d wanted them to do was ring the police so they could catch the guys, instead of me just chasing after them. Then I could have stood up in court and pointed out who’d stabbed me.
The police officer looked at me and shook his head, as if to say, ‘What can you do? People just don’t want to help out these days.’ Not long after that I managed to acquire one or two addresses, and I made it all good for them. It was about four or five o’clock in the morning when I knocked on their doors. I might have scared them a little, got them out of bed, something like that. Well, it’s a mental game.
And they might have walked out the next day and found various objects around their front doors. Maybe they had to move house. I might have scared them out of their own homes. They might have thought I’d have done their heads in. Maybe they’ll help someone out next time.
But, the night of the attack, I went to bed and slept like a log. All those years of military training in the Paras, the security work, the skills I’d acquired in boxing and the martial arts, the fitness and endurance records I’d set and the courses in self-protection I’d given to others: they’d all paid off that night. I’d done what I had to do. I saw those attackers off. They ran like cowards, and they didn’t get my car. And I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
Next time I’ll probably hospitalise the aggressors. They may never breathe again. At the time there was an element of surprise when they attacked me, but it’s been rehearsed now. If anybody tries to take my car off me again, they’ll be six foot under. A local reporter rang me up not long after the incident. He’d seen the articles in the Sun and the Daily Star about how I’d defended myself. He asked me, ‘What would you do if you saw those guys again?’ I gave him a quick résumé, mentioning axes and saws, limbs and acid, plus certain burying techniques. He didn’t print my reply.
Another time, in 2001, I was on my way home from a