A violent bare-knuckle brawl between two notorious fighters brought Manchester's bustling Christmas market to an abrupt standstill, sending festive crowds scattering.
Christmas Chaos in Exchange Square
The dramatic confrontation erupted on Sunday late afternoon in Exchange Square, directly outside the high-end Selfridge's department store and a Porky Pig food stall. Dougie Joyce, recently released from jail, and his long-time foe Simon 'Simey' McGinley traded blows in a fierce physical altercation that was captured on video.
Shocked onlookers watched as the two men fought fiercely before tumbling to the ground. In the footage, Joyce can be heard shouting, 'get it up there son - who are you?' before landing several punches on McGinley. The scene only calmed when others intervened, pulling the pair apart as they disappeared into the gathered crowd.
Victory Claims and Online Insults
Following the scrap, both combatants took to social media to claim victory and exchange bitter insults. In a video that appeared to be filmed on a train, McGinley declared, ‘Dougie Joyce, you came tonight to the Christmas market and you're acting now a bit of a blackguard.’ He showed his face to the camera, insisting 'there's nothing there - there's not a black eye'.
McGinley boasted of knocking Joyce out ‘with two or three belts’ and provocatively suggested a re-match with Joyce's cousin, Tommy Joyce, acting as referee. He finished his tirade by labelling his rival a 'dirty big knacker' and a 'country boy'.
Not to be outdone, Dougie Joyce posted a six-minute audio rant, seemingly recorded while driving away from the city centre. He laughingly claimed he had ‘knocked out’ McGinley, leaving him ‘not knowing what day it was’. Joyce asserted that he had taken his watch off 'as a fair chap' before the fight, but alleged that McGinley initiated the violence with a headbutt.
‘The beating that I give Simey McGinley... he didn't know what day it was,’ Joyce swore on his family's lives. He challenged McGinley to a second fight the following morning and promised to release CCTV footage of the incident, while deriding his opponent with crude insults.
Police Response and Historical Context
Greater Manchester Police confirmed they responded to reports of a disturbance in Exchange Square at 4.35pm on Sunday. However, by the time officers arrived, the incident was over. A police spokeswoman stated that officers spoke to both men, but neither would disclose anything and no formal complaints were made.
The animosity between Joyce and McGinley is believed to stretch back to at least 2016, when they were previously involved in a war of words while attempting to organise another fight.
This incident adds to the controversial public profile of Dougie Joyce, one of Manchester's most prominent Traveller community members. In March 2024, he was jailed for 13 months for violent disorder related to a feud between the Joyce and Doherty families at a wake in a Collyhurst pub. At the time of that sentencing, he was already serving a prison term for attacking a 78-year-old widower in a Manchester city centre pub in November 2023.
In a surprising twist, Joyce, an unlikely friend of former Prime Minister Liz Truss, was pictured with her in June promoting his new line of whisky. A video showed Truss holding a bottle of his Irish whisky, with the pair exchanging words of mutual affection.
Following his release from prison in July, the 35-year-old Joyce remained unrepentant, stating, ‘I never regret anything I do in life. I regret being in that situation. But I don't regret anything I do because everything I do is for a reason.’
