My family were all boxers and had to be to look after this place. I had to laugh reading this description this is exactly what it was like. I started work there when I was 11.
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/londons-worst-clubs.282174/page-2"The Galtymore is/was in Cricklewood. It was still there the last time I drove past (a couple of years ago). I've played at quite a few parties in a run-down flat across the road from there (I nearly fell through the ceiling once)... used to look out of the window and watch people flying out of there with arms and fists waving like moshers in a hardcore mosh pit... lol :D"http://www.galteemore.com/galteemorecricklewood.html 
You rarely come across dancing clubs like that these days.
Fights however are pretty endemic in the nightlife, even in Belgium
Where I live little people are of full Belgian descent. We mostly have clubs filled to the brim with Italians (I have Italian ancestry myself), Turks, Moroccans, Dutch and Greeks. The closer you get to closing time, the more people start kicking each others heads in
I like Europe but haven't visited Belgium. Passed through on the Eurostar and had a walk through Brussels someone told me it can be a bit rowdy some nights. He said "It's a shithole" and I thought to myself "Thank feck I'm on my way to Paris" so is organized crime prevalent in Belgium and do you know much about who runs things in France. Any movies you can recommend I would appreciate or books? I saw a French flick called 'Lost Prophet', ''The Prophet' or something and thought it was great stuff.
Anyway Killing Joke apologies for being harsh with you as you make some great posts
No hard feelings
There are some parts of Brussels that are gigantic sewers lol. Molenbeek, Anderlecht,...the population around those parts are almost 70% Moroccan and 30% Turkish. When researching organized crime Brussels is one of the most unattractive European cities, because there's barely information about it. Brussels is probably the European capital of petty theft: in some parts chances of becoming a robbery victim are very high. Crime families are barely known.
Cities like Charleroi and Liège have a large Italian population and the Stidda (the mafia from Southern Sicily) has operated there for a long time. The Stidda gangsters blend into the local Italian community and associate with local Belgian and Moroccan gangsters. Belgium's largest organized crime trial concerned a list of people around Marcel Habran (often called the "Godfather of Liège"). They were involved in brutal armed robberies on security vans as well as some other rackets and 8 murders:
Liège (article is in Dutch)
The most is known about Antwerp. Antwerp has a large port so it naturally attracts a lot of different crime bosses. Deurne with it's large Moroccan population is home to the local crime boss Abdelkader R. (
Abdelkader R. ) who's involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. Some parts of inner city Antwerp have been home to Eastern European crime families: the so-called "Falconplein" was the stronghold of Israeli/Georgian Jewish crime boss Abraham Melikhov (
Abraham Melikhov ), other parts such as "Koningsplein" have been strongholds of Albanian crime families such as Victor Hoxha's clan (
Albanian mafia in Belgium ) or for criminal Chechen gangs (
Chechen gangsters in Antwerp ). Then there are of course also criminal activities within the local Turkish community. Other Eastern European criminals have hid or operate from Antwerp without necessarily controlling any turf: these people are not necessarily "gangsters" as such but more businessman who launder money for criminal organizations (Riccardo Fanchini, a Pole with an Italian name, was a known money launderer for criminal organizations from Russia:
Fanchini ). More from Antwerp you might find interesting: Irish crime boss Christy Kinahan long operated from Antwerp (
Kinahan ). My apologies for the articles, the only articles I could find are in Dutch.
Limburg -where I live- is also a known base for criminal organizations. It has a large Italian community where mostly Ndrangheta-connected groups operate from. The region where I live is home to a local Italian crime family active in large-scale drug importation and distribution (
Aquino ), they where not officially part of the Ndrangheta but connected to them. Limburg also has a large Turkish community where criminal activities take place. A Greek community is also present and altough that community is smaller compared to the Italian or Turkish ones, every local Greek community has at least one family active in some criminal vices. Dutch criminals are active along the border with the Netherlands. Local ethnic Belgian criminals mostly work with the Dutch or are part of the outlaw motorcycle gangs based in the Netherlands.
About France the only stuff I know is from what I've read. The most influential criminal organization in Paris was the Hornec family: a criminal organization based around the Hornec brothers, Yéniche gypsies from Montreuil, and mostly composed of local gypsy and North African gangsters as well as some black criminals.
In Marseille you have the Corsican mafia along with some local criminal organizations from the working class suburbs. The Corsican crime families come and operate from the nearby French island of Corsica. The "Brise de Mer" gang was the most well known. Local criminal organizations are mostly composed of local Italian, French and Algerian crime bosses. They distribute drugs to smaller dealers in the mostly Algerian-populated suburbs of Marseille, which are major shitholes
"The Prophet" is a great movie btw. The French crime movie "A Gang Story" is also a good one. Another very good crime series from France is "Braquo". Belgium actually produces little crime movies, the closest thing is "Dossier K" about the Albanian mafia in Antwerp.
