Jimmy The Weed: Inside the Quality Street Gang

by Jimmy Donnelly

Jimmy Donnelly is an underworld legend. Known as Jimmy the Weed, he has mixed with the most notorious gangsters in Britain and the Costa del Crime in a criminal career spanning five decades. He has been arrested on suspicion of serious offences including murder, drug supply, violence and fraud, has faced numerous court trials, and has walked free from them all. Most infamously, Donnelly was a key figure in the Quality Street Gang, or QSG, an enigmatic group of Manchester car dealers, club owners, ex-boxers, scrap merchants and businessmen. They socialised with the elite of the city, from football stars like George Best and Stan Bowles to famous entertainers, and inspired the hit song ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’. They were also targeted for many years by Greater Manchester Police, who suspected some of them of involvement in major crime. In the mid-eighties, the QSG became embroiled in the sensational Stalker Affair, which led to a national political scandal and ultimately to the resignation of the city’s deputy chief constable. In this candid autobiography, Donnelly tells of his childhood and early introduction to villainy on the huge Wythenshawe housing estate. He went on to join the Market Mob, a gang of tough young men employed at the city’s Smithfield Market, and befriended the formidable boxer Jim Swords, the man the QSG grouped around. After his own construction business ran into trouble, Donnelly was declared bankrupt, and embarked instead on a career of crime. He later acquired pubs, clubs, car pitches and massage parlours, and became the biggest illicit ticket agent in the North-west. He also forged friendships with numerous figures from the worlds of crime, showbiz and sport. From gangland feuds to major heists, Donnelly has seen and done it all, and tells it in unvarnished detail. Jimmy The Weed is the last great untold story of the British underworld.

Genres: Nonfiction

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 23, 2011

Reviews

[Eugene Vesey · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is possibly the most revolting book I've ever read, all about criminals and their disgusting activities. I only read it because I'm researching my family history and my father was born and brought up in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where some of the book is set. I only struggled to the end in the vain hope of learning more about Manchester in that period, but I now regret a few hours of my life I'll never get back. Far more edifying would be Our Kid by Billy Hopkins and Kate's Story by the same author, which I'm presently reading, both set more or less in the same part of North Manchester where my father was born and brought up. Both are the perfect antidote to the sickening litany of violent, vicious crimes which is virtually all that the Jimmy the Weed book amounts to. I didn't learn anything of interest about Manchester either, since the Manchester underworld is not one I ever had or wanted to have any experience of. I'm pretty sure the same would go for my father, who was the most honourable and decent of men, too.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating

Great read, told like it was (and still is, sometimes) brought back memories of Manchester as I remember it growing up

[PAUL · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read but probably full of hyperbolic exaggeration as are most of these type of books. The proofreading was appalling. Milo books should be ashamed of themselves publishing this as it is.

[GluteusMaximus · Rating 1 out of 5]

No comment…for fear of a knock on my door 😉