Still aged 13, whilst spending afternoons playing for the Northern Ireland national under-16 football team, he began working at The House Nightclub (at the Kilwaughter House Hotel) near Larne. Fergie was too young to enter the club as a customer and so, instead, Mark Dobbin, the promoter of the club, employed him. He gave Fergie a red boiler suit to wear and paid him to collect empty glasses, brush the floor and clean the toilets. It was here Fergie would see the likes of Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold perform. As a perk of the job, he was allowed to practise on the club's DJ equipment (with the aid of an upturned milk crate to stand on to reach it). This led to him playing his first DJ gig when he was age 14, a warm-up set at the venue. To get him into other venues, his brother Ken and Robbie Nelson would smuggle him in under a bundle of coats.