Jimmy The Weed

Jimmy Donnelly is an underworld legend. Known as Jimmy the Weed, he has mixed with the most notorious gangsters in Europe in a criminal career spanning five decades. He has been arrested on suspicion of murder, theft, 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 car dealers, ex-boxers, scrap merchants and club owners. They socialised with the elite of Manchester, from football stars like George Best and Stan Bowles to famous entertainers, and inspired the Thin Lizzy song "The Boys Are Back In Town". They were also targeted for many years by Greater Manchester Police, who suspected some of them of major crimes. In the mid-1980s, 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.


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 British gangland.