The night Damien Noonan and Paul 'One Punch' Doyle squared off in a pub car park
manchestereveningnews.co.ukThey were two of Manchester's most notorious hardmen. And they were kicking lumps out of each other in a pub car park. Covered in blood, half-blinded and close to exhaustion, Paul 'One Punch' Doyle and Damien Noonan fought each other to a standstill outside the Inn of Good Hope in Eccles.
Some of Manchester and Salford's most hardened criminals watched on. But prior to the dust-up there was no animosity between the two men.
So how did they end up coming to blows? Doyle was a fearsome bouncer and one-time friend of Salford 'Mr Big' Paul Massey, who reputedly gave his pal his nickname after witnessing him knock out five men, one after the other, at Pips nightclub in Manchester. READ MORE: 'Enough is enough': The pub truce that brought a halt to the Gooch, Doddington and Cheetham Hill gang war Noonan would go on to become one of Manchester's most infamous crime bosses - the 'gangster of gangsters', as his friend former bare-knuckle boxer and TV personality, Paddy Doherty would later describe him.
Alongside his brothers Dessie and Dominic, he rose from a relatively poor, Irish, working-class upbringing in Whalley Range to the top of gangland Manchester.
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