The incident McCartney and Best referred to which led to their deportation occured in their squalid lodgings in the Bambi Kino owned by Herr Koschmider. The Beatles had worked for Bruno Koschmider, manager of the Kaiserkeller Club and the day of the 'incident' they had handed in their notice to him as they had had a better offer to play at the rival Top Ten Club on the Reeperbaum. Koschmider had been annoyed because The Beatles had refused to sign an agreement stating that they would not play in Hamburg that month. While packing up his belongings in their lodgings, McCartney found a box of damp matches, he and Best ..in our moment of stupidity.. set a piece of cord alight, and realizing they had gone to far, extinquished the flames and returned to bed to sleep. Koschmider claimed that it had been their intention to burn the cinema down and pressed for their deportation. The Beatles felt that Koschmider used this petty incident as an means of saving his own business as he feared that The Beatles' defection to the Top Ten Club would have a detrimental effect on the Kaiserkeller Club's takings.