Vincent Peter Jones (born 5 January 1965) is a British actor, presenter, and former professional footballer.
Jones played professionally as a defensive midfielder from 1984 to 1999, notably for Wimbledon, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelsea, and Queens Park Rangers. He also played for and captained the Welsh national team, having qualified through a Welsh grandparent. Best remembered for his time at Wimbledon as a pivotal member of the famous "Crazy Gang", he won the 1988 FA Cup final with the London side, a club for which he played over 200 games during two spells between 1986 and 1998. He played 184 games in the Premier League, in which he scored 13 goals. Jones gained a reputation for being one of the hardest footballers in history, with his highly aggressive and physically uncompromising style of play, an image which has often led to him being typecast in his film career as violent criminals and thugs.
As an actor, his film and television career began with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), for which he won an Empire Award for Best Newcomer. Then for Snatch (2000), he won the Empire Award for Best British Actor. Other notable credits include Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Mean Machine (2001), EuroTrip (2004), Extras (2005), X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), The Riddle (2007), The Midnight Meat Train (2008), Year One (2009), The Cape (2011), Fire with Fire (2012), The Musketeers (2014), MacGyver (2016), NCIS: Los Angeles (2019), The Big Ugly (2020) and The Gentlemen (2024).
Vincent Peter Jones was born on 5 January 1965, in Watford, Hertfordshire, the son of Glenda (née Harris) and gamekeeper Peter Jones. He attended schools in nearby Bedmond and Abbots Langley, and captained his school's football team, and played for his local football team in the village of Bedmond, in the Three Rivers District of Hertfordshire. One of his grandmothers was Irish from Dublin, and the other was Welsh, which later qualified him to play for Wales.
Having begun playing as a teenager in local amateur football, a 19-year-old Jones was signed on semi-professional terms by Wealdstone of the Alliance Premier League in 1984. A young addition to the experienced Wealdstone team, which was soon to become the first ever club to achieve the non-league "double" in the 1984–85 season, he was a non-playing squad member in the club's victory at Wembley Stadium in the 1985 FA Trophy final. He combined playing football with working as a hod carrier on construction sites.
He played one season on loan with Swedish club IFK Holmsund in 1986, helping to lead the team to the Division 3 Mellersta Norrland title.
In the autumn of 1986, a 21-year-old Jones became a full-time professional footballer when he was signed by Wimbledon of the First Division, who paid Wealdstone £10,000 for him. He scored in only his second appearance for Wimbledon on 29 November 1986, in a 1–0 win over Manchester United. He was a member of the Wimbledon team which won the FA Cup in 1988, beating league champions Liverpool 1–0 in the final. Wimbledon cemented their status as a formidable First Division side during this time, with Jones making his name as an enthusiastic and uncompromisingly tough midfielder and a leading member of Wimbledon's famed Crazy Gang.
Jones was transferred from Wimbledon to Leeds United for a fee of £650,000 in June 1989, and played in all but one league game as Leeds finished as champions of the Second Division, winning promotion to the First Division in 1990. Jones proved he could thrive even when playing a more restrained style, and under the stewardship of Howard Wilkinson, he received only three yellow cards during the entire season.
Jones left Leeds United early in the 1990–91 season after losing his regular first-team place to youngsters David Batty and Gary Speed. His former Wimbledon manager Dave Bassett signed him for Sheffield United in September 1990 for a transfer fee of £700,000. He played 35 matches for The Blades in the First Division, scoring two goals.
Jones was then sold to Chelsea a year later on 30 August 1991, for a fee of £575,000. Jones made his Chelsea debut one day after his signing in the 4–1 win against Luton. On 18 September 1991, Jones scored his first goal for the club in the 2–0 win against Aston Villa. He went on to make 52 total appearances for Chelsea, scoring 7 goals and receiving only 3 yellow cards.
After just one season at Stamford Bridge, he was back with Wimbledon in the early stages of the 1992–93 season, when the Premier League had just been formed. He helped Wimbledon equal their best ever league finish in 1993–94, when they finished sixth in the Premier League. Three seasons later, he contributed to another strong season for the club, who reached the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and the League Cup, and finished eighth in the Premier League. That season he scored the winning goal as Wimbledon won 1–0 against Arsenal at Highbury.
His second exit from Wimbledon came when he became player/coach of QPR in early 1998, scoring on his debut against Huddersfield Town. He announced his retirement from football in early 1999 at the age of 34.
In December 1994 Jones was named in the Welsh national squad, qualifying under FIFA rules via his Ruthin-born maternal grandfather. He had previously sought to play for the Republic of Ireland due to eligibility through a grandparent. He made his international debut under Mike Smith for Wales on 14 December 1994, in a 3–0 home defeat to Bulgaria in the Euro 96 qualifiers. When Smith was replaced as Wales manager by Jones's former Wimbledon manager Bobby Gould a few months later, he remained a regular member of the Welsh national squad. He was capped nine times for Wales, the last of which came on 29 March 1997 in a 2–1 defeat to Belgium in a World Cup qualifier, also at Cardiff Arms Park.
Jones' international call-up was however greeted with consternation by some and was even ridiculed by Jimmy Greaves, who said, "Well, stone me! We've had cocaine, bribery and Arsenal scoring two goals at home. But just when you thought there were truly no surprises left in football, Vinnie Jones turns out to be an international player!".
Jones was renowned for his "hard man" persona and his very tough, uncompromising style of play on the pitch. He was sent off a total of 12 times in his career, in an era when referees generally took a much more lenient view of overly aggressive play and mistimed tackles than would be the case today.
He holds the record for the quickest ever booking in a football match, being cautioned just five seconds after kick-off for a foul on the opposition player Dane Whitehouse, in an FA Cup tie between Chelsea and Sheffield United in 1992. In his autobiography, he recalls: "I must have been too high, too wild, too strong or too early, because, after three seconds, I could hardly have been too bloody late!"
In an incident in February 1988, Jones was famously photographed covertly grabbing Paul Gascoigne by his testicles during a league game for Wimbledon against Newcastle United.
He also was the presenter of the Soccer's Hard Men video released in 1992, which featured archived footage of him and many other "hard men" of the game, and included advice for budding "hard men". After the release of the video, Jones was fined £20,000 and given a six-month ban (suspended for three years) for "bringing the game into disrepute". Wimbledon chairman Sam Hammam branded Jones a "mosquito brain". After this incident, Jones failed to stay out of trouble. After exceeding 40 disciplinary points that season, he was once again summoned to Lancaster Gate, the headquarters of The Football Association, but failed to appear. The FA banned Jones indefinitely. Jones explained that he had "mixed up" the date of the hearing, for which he received a four-match ban and was told by Football Association officials to "grow up". Jones commented later: "The FA have given me a pat on the back. I've taken violence off the terracing and onto the pitch" – an obvious reference to the football hooliganism problem which had blighted the English game during the 1970s and 1980s.