Jimmy was a self-confessed brawler who insisted the QSG were ‘honourable’ thievesJimmy ‘The Weed’ Donnelly(Image: STEVE ALLEN)

One of the founder members of Manchester’s notorious Quality Street Gang, Jimmy ‘The Weed’ Donnelly, has died.

His family announced that he had died peacefully on Sunday morning at a care home in Bowdon surrounded by family. He was 84. He had been battling cancer since 2019. Tributes have flooded into the Mr Donnelly who was immortalised in the 1976 Thin Lizzy song Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed.

He was among the first members of of the QSG – said to be responsible for much of Manchester’s crime spanning the 60s, 70s and 80s – to speak openly about the gang when he published an autobiography in 2011.

Announcing his death online on Sunday, his family said: “It is with the greatest sadness that we announce the death of our beloved father, grandad, brother, uncle and friend to so many, Jimmy ‘The Weed’ Donnelly. ” The statement went on that the family was ‘immensely proud of the legacy you leave behind’.

His niece and nephew, Tracey and Chris Donnelly, told the Manchester Evening News: “He was a character. I don’t think we will ever see the like of him again. He’s kind of the end of an era, old Manchester and the way it was. I don’t think those characters exist now. He was just a lovely uncle. He’s going to be sore missed by all his family.”

Jimmy’s businessman brother Arthur, whose sons formed the GioGoi fashion brand, died last month, aged 83.

In 2011, in an interview with this correspondent, Jimmy admitted he had been a villain and a successful one. The then 70-year-old, who leaves three sons and five grandchildren, began his life of crime stealing lighters from Boots when he was an eight-year-old growing up in Wythenshawe.

Later he moved to Ancoats and worked as a barrow boy at Smithfield Market where he met many of the people who would form the QSG. His speciality, he has revealed, was handling stolen goods and spectacular violence. He once put a nail through a man’s hand, he admitted.

Jimmy The Weed Donnelly(Image: Manchester Evening News)

Eventually, he moved into legitimate business, owning a string of pubs, clubs and car dealerships around the city. He even became a boxing promoter. Donnelly was known as ‘The Weed’ – although not, he insisted, because of any involvement in drug dealing. He claimed he was given the name at school because he would ‘grow on people’.

Donnelly was friends with Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott and was said to have been the inspiration for the band’s song Johnny The Fox Meets Jimmy The Weed. His other high-profile pals included George Best and a string of star actors. He became a boxing promoter and brought Mohammed Ali to the UK in the early 1980s.

He became so successful he was regularly seen around Manchester in his Rolls Royce with the private registration plate QSG 1.

He said in his autobiography: “For my part, I was a villain; a successful one at that. I have handled stolen gems, illegal firearms and piles of cash. I have hurt people, though never someone who did not deserve it, and have survived attempts on my own life. I have had friends who were killers and others who have been killed.”

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News in 2019 from the sheltered accommodation in the same Victorian block of flats in Ancoats where his late wife Rita was born, Jimmy revealed he has fighting cancer and he spoke about the ups and downs of his life in the criminal underworld. Rita died in 1988 aged 44 and Jimmy never really found love again, according to his family.

Jimmy ‘The Weed’ Donnelly(Image: STEVE ALLEN)

“The Quality Street Gang was people that knew each other intimately and trusted each other,” said Jimmy. “Some of them were armed robbers, safe blowers, some were conmen and some were doing fraud, we were all into crime in a different way.

“We weren’t all into the same thing, but there was one thing we were sure of, if there was ever any trouble, we were all in it together. If somebody threatened us we’d be there, the whole lot of us.”

One of seven children born to an Irish family, Wythenshawe-raised Jimmy was entranced by the hustle and bustle of Smithfield Market and, more importantly, by the opportunity to make money.

Jimmy Donnelly’s book Jimmy the Weed(Image: Lee Boswell)

His first job after leaving school at 15 was as a ‘bike boy’, getting up before daylight to take fresh fish from the market to the railway stations, hotels and restaurants around town. He soon discovered there was a ‘fiddle’ to be made to supplement his £2 a week wages.

“On the way out I’d grab a turkey or a chicken or a handful of steaks,” said Jimmy. Jimmy’s antics soon earned him a reputation with some of the other market lads, including a young man named James Monaghan who was better known by his boxing ring name Jim Swords. In his first book, Jimmy describes his lifelong pal Swords as a ‘typical Ancoats urchin’.

(Image: Lee Boswell)

He spoke openly about the violence of his early days. “Don’t forget I was only 5ft 4in, I was fearless, I didn’t give a f*** who they were, I’d fight them,” he said.

By the time he was in his late 20s, Jimmy said he was already a successful and wealthy businessman, owning a construction firm. He has also dabbled in many other pursuits from selling cars and sports tickets, to owning dozens of pubs and hotels.

(Image: Lee Boswell)

The Quality Street Gang became the nickname for a group of around a dozen or so well-known very smartly dressed ‘faces’ of Manchester’s clubland like Jimmy, some of whom occasionally found themselves on the wrong side of the law but who always had plenty of cash to spend. “We were flash b******s,” he said.

The crimes of the QSG were never fully understood but, according to Jimmy, they were were ‘honourable’ thieves and thugs, stealing from those who could afford it and ending vicious ‘straighteners’ with a handshake.

Funeral arrangements will be made public in due course.