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.

[1] 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.

Other notable credits include Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Mean Machine (2001), The Big Bounce (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), Rise of the Footsoldier Origins (2021) and, against type, The Gentlemen (2024).

[5] 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.

[9] 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.

[11] Jones proved he could thrive, and under the stewardship of Howard Wilkinson,[4] he received only three yellow cards during the entire season.

[11] Jones left Leeds United early in the 1990–91 season after losing his regular first-team place to youngsters David Batty and Gary Speed.

In December 1994 Jones was named in the Welsh national squad, qualifying under FIFA rules via his Ruthin-born maternal grandfather.

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.

He was capped nine times for Wales,[2] 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.

"[8] 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.

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.

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".

In June 2010, he released a press statement stating that he was donating his 1988 FA Cup winners medal to the fans of AFC Wimbledon, wishing the club the best for the future.

[27] In 1998, Jones made his film debut in Guy Ritchie's crime comedy Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in which he played a mob enforcer named Big Chris.

[29] He has since been typecast in similar roles as criminals or villains, including the dapper gun-for-hire "Bullet-Tooth Tony" in Guy Ritchie's 2000 follow up Snatch, for which Jones won the Best British Actor at the 6th Empire Awards in 2001.

He teamed up with director Dominic Sena again the following year for the thriller Swordfish,[31] in which he played one of John Travolta's henchmen.

[5] Jones played Danny Meehan in Mean Machine, a 2001 British remake of the Burt Reynolds film The Longest Yard.

[5] His next role was in the 2006 film, X-Men: The Last Stand,[5] as the comic book villain Juggernaut, alongside Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry.

Producers of the film dealt with the Kazakh-to-English language barrier by writing Jones' character as a mute who does not speak.

[31] He co-starred alongside Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action-thriller Escape Plan,[31] released in 2013, and was featured with Danny Trejo in the 2014 horror-thriller Reaper.

[44] Jones was convicted in June 1998 of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage against a neighbour in November 1997.