Robin Friday (27 July 1952 – 22 December 1990) was an English footballer who played professionally as a forward for Reading and Cardiff City during a career that lasted four years in the mid-1970s. earning the nickname "lower league George Best". His on-field performances were regarded as excellent, and he won Reading's player of the year award in both of his full seasons there, as well as being the leading goal scorer. However, his habit of unsettling opponents through physical intimidation contributed to a heavily tarnished disciplinary record, and his personal life was one of heavy smoking, drinking, womanising and drug abuse. Despite his short career, he remains prominent in the memory of Reading and Cardiff supporters, both as a player and a personality. He has been voted Reading's best ever player three times. He entered the Reading FC 'Hall of Fame' in 2022.
Born and raised in Acton, West London, Friday was scouted, but not retained, by four professional clubs during his teenage years. He appeared for local semi-professional sides in the Isthmian League until he joined Charlie Hurley's Fourth Division Reading team in 1974; quickly becoming a key player, he helped Reading to win promotion to the Third Division during the 1975–76 season. As his drug habit intensified, Friday's form began to dip in the first half of the 1976–77 season, leading Reading to sell him to Second Division side Cardiff City around the New Year. Friday travelled to join his new team by train without a valid ticket and had to be bailed by the Cardiff manager Jimmy Andrews before he signed for the club. He performed strongly on his debut, but afterwards his form declined and his personal life caused him to repeatedly miss matches altogether. Following a number of incidents, on and off the field—including kicking Mark Lawrenson in the face —Friday retired from football in December 1977, aged 25. He died in Acton in 1990, aged 38, after suffering a heart attack.
The strongest aspects of Friday's game were his ball skills, footballing intelligence and physical and mental strength. Andrews labelled Friday "the complete centre-forward", and, along with numerous contemporaries, retrospectively rated Friday as good enough for the England national team. In a 2004 BBC poll, Friday was voted the top "all-time cult hero" for both Reading and Cardiff City. The Cardiff-based band Super Furry Animals dedicated their 1996 single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" to his memory. Author, Stuart Kane penned two fact-based novels titled "Man Friday: The First Half" and "Man Friday: The Second Half" about Friday's life on and off the pitch.
Early life and non-league career
Childhood
Robin Friday and his twin brother, Tony, were born on 27 July 1952 in Acton, west London. Their parents, Alf Friday, a driver for a laundry firm, and his wife Sheila, were both born in Acton and had married a year before, both aged 20, having met three years earlier. Sheila's father, Frederick Riding, had played professional football for Brentford before the Second World War. The Fridays lived with Sheila's family until moving into a prefab of their own in Acton Green when Robin and Tony were aged two; they moved to a maisonette in South Acton in 1962 when it was found that the prefab was sinking. Robin and Tony were later described by their mother as having been remarkably close, rarely arguing or fighting. A noticeable difference in personality was that Robin was shy, whereas Tony was more confident. The twins attended their first professional match at the age of two, when their father took them to a Brentford match at Griffin Park. From the age of four Alf took both boys to play football at a local park every afternoon.
Around the age of ten, Friday possessed notable ball-skills, and according to his father could flick an orange up onto his neck, balance it and then let it roll it back down his body and catch it on his foot. As well as football, Robin played cricket to a high standard, boxed and played tennis. Despite their many similarities and common interest in sports and football in particular, the twins were wildly different in academic terms: while Tony did well at school, Friday was uninterested and according to his brother "was always bunking off, having birds around the park".
Friday was scouted by numerous London sides during his teenage years, joining Crystal Palace's school of excellence at 12 or 13, then moving on to Queens Park Rangers aged 13 and then to Chelsea, with whom he attended the 1967 FA Cup Final; as one of the club's youth players, he was part of the team's official party. However, Friday's individual style of play and refusal to change his game resulted in each of these clubs losing patience with him. The twin brothers joined a men's team, the Acton British Legion Reserves, aged 14, and in some matches would play alongside their father. Tony played in midfield, and Robin up front, but according to Tony his brother was better as a goalkeeper than a forward: "He was a brilliant goalkeeper. He had no fear ... But he obviously preferred banging them in at the other end". Around this time Robin became interested in music, dancing and attending concerts; he also had a talent for drawing, but suddenly abandoned this interest at 15. Robin became more outgoing than his brother and started taking drugs in his mid-teens. He left school at 15, a year before Tony, and began training as a plasterer.
Borstal, first marriage and the Isthmian League
Friday lasted two months as a plasterer before moving on to become first a van driver for a grocery firm, then a window cleaner. His laid-back attitude and indifference was already clear: in his father's words, "he didn't care". Friday regularly stole by this time, but despite numerous convictions, did not go to a detention centre until he was 16. Having been caught stealing what Tony recalled to be "a car radio or something", he was released almost immediately because he suffered from asthma. However, after he re-offended three months later he was sent to Feltham Borstal where he served 14 months. During his time there, Friday became stronger and fitter and also starred for the Borstal football team. He was selected for the prison league's all-star men's team, still aged 16, and allowed out of Borstal to train and play with Reading's youth team, for which he appeared three times in the South East Counties League during the 1968–69 season.
After his release, Friday returned to Acton, where he had a girlfriend called Maxine Doughan and a baby daughter called Nicola. Maxine was of mixed race. The local controversy surrounding the interracial relationship caused the couple and their circle of friends to be socially isolated, and led to a physical attack on the group one night in an Acton public house. Despite this, and the opposition by both sets of parents—Alf refused to even attend the wedding—they married, both aged 17 and had a daughter named Nicola. Friday did not take his marital commitments seriously and continued to womanise, drink heavily and take narcotics. A friend who played for Walthamstow Avenue, a semi-professional Isthmian League club from north-east London, took Friday along to training one day in early 1971. Friday played well enough for Walthamstow to sign him the same day on wages of £10 per week. Many of his new teammates were asphalters from east London, and Friday soon joined them in that trade.
Friday made his debut for Walthamstow on 27 March 1971, against Bromley, coming off the bench to set up Walthamstow's equaliser. His first goal came on 17 April, when playing against Tooting & Mitcham he once again appeared as a substitute and scored a header late in the game. He joined west London club Hayes in December 1971 after scoring twice against them in an Isthmian League match. Hayes offered £30 per week, and were also based closer to his home in Acton. A near-fatal accident at work in July 1972 caused Friday to undergo extensive surgery; while working on a roof in Lambeth, a hoist rope became stuck on the scaffold he was working on. The Hayes forward attempted to free the rope but fell and landed on a large spike: the spike went up through one of his buttocks, through his stomach and narrowly avoided a lung. Not only was Friday strong enough to pull himself off the spike, he recovered from his injuries within three months and returned to the Hayes team in October 1972.
Friday was known at Hayes for his excessive drinking, and on one occasion the team started a match a player short because Friday had not turned up. When he finally arrived, eighty minutes after kick-off, his intoxication was obvious, but he was still sent onto the pitch with the match still goalless. The opposition paid him little attention and Friday scored a late winning goal. Hayes were drawn to play Football League Fourth Division club Reading in the FA Cup's second round on 9 December 1972; the team managed to draw 0–0 at Reading and earn the right to a replay at home, which they lost 1–0 three days later. Although Hayes had lost, the interest of Reading manager Charlie Hurley was piqued. Hurley travelled to Hayes more than once to watch Friday. Having researched the player's background, he was cautious about signing him, but was impressed all the same by his on-field performances.
The 1972–73 season was Friday's most prolific non-League year in terms of goals. He briefly joined Enfield early in the 1973–74 season and scored against Hayes in an FA Cup tie before returning to west London in December 1973. Having also been approached by Third Division side Watford, Friday signed for Hurley's Reading side in January 1974 for £750. He had scored 46 goals in 67 appearances for Hayes over his two spells there, but during his three Isthmian League seasons had been sent off seven times. Friday signed as an amateur, meaning that although he would be contracted to Reading he would be able to continue appearing for Hayes and working as an asphalter in London; he would train part-time with Reading and play for their reserve team.
Professional career
Reading
1973–74
In Hurley's words, Friday "trained like he played"; "he had no other way of playing". His new manager had to take him out of training on occasion because of the injuries he would inflict on his own teammates in his effort to win. By late January 1974, Reading were on a run of 14 games with only two victories, while Friday had performed strongly in three reserve matches. Hurley registered the amateur forward to play in the Football League on 23 January 1974 and gave him his first-team debut four days later. Friday turned in a performance awayRothmans Football yearbook, 1974-1975 (covering 1973-1974 season), Queen Anne Press Limited, p386 - confirmation of venue at Northampton Town that the Reading Evening Post called "outstanding" as Reading drew 3–3. The team then travelled to Barnsley on 3 February, having not won away from home in four months. After Barnsley led 2–0 at half-time, Friday scored his first League goal with a header just after the break to make the score 2–1. Reading immediately offered a professional contract, which Friday signed on 6 February 1974. His new salary was half what he had earned as an asphalter.