A POPULAR pub landlord attacked and left for dead has told how a box of crisps saved his life.

Eddie Fitzpatrick was glassed in the head and pushed down the steep cellar stairs of The Lamp Tavern when 15 yobs stormed the Digbeth pub on the first night of the Birmingham riots last month.

The gang fled with cash and a spirit bottle leaving the 65-year-old in a pool of a blood with serious head and back injuries.

Luckily the grandad who has run the pub in Barford Street for 18 years , took with him a box of ham and mustard flavoured crisps as he fell down the 45 degree angle stairs.

He told the Birmingham Mail: “It was the crisps that saved me. I know that softened my landing.”

Irishman Mr Fitzpatrick, a well known face in Digbeth, had decided to close up early on August 8 due to the outbreak of violence in the city centre when 15 thugs smashed their way into the pub leaving a handful of regular punters fleeing for safety.

Two pensioners locked themselves in the pub’s toilets. Another elderly man was robbed of £5.