Robin Friday

[From Despair To Where?]

I never saw him play but always heard him referenced on the terraces throughout the early eighties, usually with something along the lines of "So and so isn't fit to lace Friday's boots" or "Friday would have had him". Even as an 11 year old with no appreciation of the club's history, it was clear that just 5 years after he left the club, legend status was already affirmed. He had this almost mythical status.

[Pseud O'Nym]

Still a nasty pikey

That, my friend, he most certainly wasn't. He would give you his last 10p if he felt you needed it more than him.

He was a great bloke whilst sober. He was a fecking nightmare when he was pissed though.

[Maguire]

"Scores of much better players" !!!!!!

There clearly speaks a person that never saw Robin Friday play.

I will accept we have had international players since Robin Friday and we have had legends (400+ games) and we have had some very good players but to say we have had "scores of much better players" is total garbage.

You don't see many threads on Kerry Dixon, Lawrie Sanchez, Neil Webb etc etc

You don't think top tier players are better than flash players at a lower level? Surely Friday's "greatest" is to do with his ability relative to his teammates/the level he was playing at. Doesn't mean an ordinary player in our Prem side (say, Stephen Hunt) wasn't better than him overall.

[Norfolk Royal]

Certainly don't agree that Friday was forgotten by Reading fans. I saw every one of the home games in the Div Four promotion season when Friday was in his pomp, including the wonder goal, and will, and have not, ever forgotten it.

He was superbly talented and certainly could have played well at championship level if he had stayed fit and buckled down a bit, perhaps higher.

What would have held him back from reaching the top level was his lack of pace.

[Gordons Cumming]

I'm sorry for those Reading fans who never saw Friday.

He really was special....... and unfortunately that speciallness eventually killed him prematurely.

By the way he was just as fast as Rodney Marsh, and he wasn't a bad player at the top level.

[Jackson Corner]

Is he Reading's greatest player? There is no doubt he was the most skillfull. But a 120 odd games at 4th tier level with a poor discapline record, alcahol, drug abuse, wife beating. He was hardly a roll model. Just my opinion but I can think of several candidates more worthy of the honour.

[Norfolk Royal]

By the way he was just as fast as Rodney Marsh,

That being about the pace of a paraplegic snail.

[Dick Habbin's hairdo]

Desperately tried not to contribute to this thread - or any Friday thread - again, but I will. I was lucky enough to watch more than 50 per cent of his games in the Hoops and my tuppence is:

1) RF was, without a shadow, one of the most talented players I have ever seen play live, including Cryuff, Gascoigne and Gullit. Only Gianfranco Zola was, in my opinion, better.

2) If Friday was playing today who knows if he would have been taken in hand and turned in to a 'professional' footballer. The game is a different pace and he lived in a different time.

3) If he was shoe-horned into following a way of life of professionals would that have killed his talent?

4) Whatever the answers to the questions, he is one of a handful of players that you would go to pay to watch regardless of who else was on the pitch.

Total legend.

[SpaceCruiser]

"Behave. He was barred from shed load of pubs in Reading."

Does make that one a pikey then? Mmm, not sure it does actually.

No it most certainly doesn't. A pikey is a tramp who lives in caravans. From all accounts, Robin wasn't like that.

[17Bus]

Of the lineup that faced Workington at Elm Park in 1975 in the first football match I ever went to, Robin is still the first name I remember and an inspiration in the choice of Reading as my team rather than any of the London clubs most of my schoolmates followed. Absolute legend.

[Ark Royal]

The thing that most detractors do not get about the Friday 'legend' is that he was head and shoulders above any other at the time; in that context he was playing with a bunch of Division 4 cloggers and showed a level of skill that Reading fans had not seen in any player for years, maybe decades. Comparable to present-day? Forget it. He would not have lasted five minutes.

[Jackson Corner]

Desperately tried not to contribute to this thread - or any Friday thread - again, but I will. I was lucky enough to watch more than 50 per cent of his games in the Hoops and my tuppence is:

1) RF was, without a shadow, one of the most talented players I have ever seen play live, including Cryuff, Gascoigne and Gullit. Only Gianfranco Zola was, in my opinion, better.

2) If Friday was playing today who knows if he would have been taken in hand and turned in to a 'professional' footballer. The game is a different pace and he lived in a different time.

3) If he was shoe-horned into following a way of life of professionals would that have killed his talent?

4) Whatever the answers to the questions, he is one of a handful of players that you would go to pay to watch regardless of who else was on the pitch.

Total legend.

How can you compare those names to Friday? They all played in European/World cups against the best defenders on the planet, and were voted European players of the year.
Friday played against Workington, Southport, Rochdale and Tranmere won promotion from div 4 and voted Reading player of the season. You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

[under the tin]

4) Whatever the answers to the questions, he is one of a handful of players that you would go to pay to watch regardless of who else was on the pitch.
Total legend.

Absolutely +1.

FWIW, I think that comparisons with the stellar players of his, or any other era are pointless.
It's a bit like the Joe Louis vs. Mike Tyson fight. interesting to speculate about over a pint of Guinness, but nothing more.
For me, it is about context.
Up until Friday arrived, I had been fed a diet of steady, but largely unspectacular footballers. Gordon Cumming could cross the ball on the run without breaking his stride, and occaisionally, "Twinkletoes" Habbin would dance past a couple of defenders.
That was about it.
Friday could do things with a football that those around him on the pitch couldn't, and that's what makes my memories of him linger. For the same reasons, memories of Dean Horrix, Glen Little, and Gylfi Siggurdsson remain.

[Dick Habbin's hairdo]

How can you compare those names to Friday? They all played in European/World cups against the best defenders on the planet, and were voted European players of the year.
Friday played against Workington, Southport, Rochdale and Tranmere won promotion from div 4 and voted Reading player of the season. You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

With the deepest respect Jacko, I think you miss the point I was trying to make - or I wasn't very clear.

One would pay to watch Friday play because he had immense skill, physical presence and was a total showman - regardless of the level of football he was playing at.

What we don't know is if he was taken in hand, and developed as a professional football player by a top team, he would have been a European Player of the Year. Would it have destroyed what was essentially Robin being Robin? I think he had the skill, pace and talent - but the "big clubs" knew he was a total basket case.

Whatever, I'm immensely thankful that I saw him play - and play for Reading, at that.

[Man Friday]

Desperately tried not to contribute to this thread - or any Friday thread - again, but I will. I was lucky enough to watch more than 50 per cent of his games in the Hoops and my tuppence is:

1) RF was, without a shadow, one of the most talented players I have ever seen play live, including Cryuff, Gascoigne and Gullit. Only Gianfranco Zola was, in my opinion, better.

2) If Friday was playing today who knows if he would have been taken in hand and turned in to a 'professional' footballer. The game is a different pace and he lived in a different time.

3) If he was shoe-horned into following a way of life of professionals would that have killed his talent?

4) Whatever the answers to the questions, he is one of a handful of players that you would go to pay to watch regardless of who else was on the pitch.

Total legend.

How can you compare those names to Friday? They all played in European/World cups against the best defenders on the planet, and were voted European players of the year.
Friday played against Workington, Southport, Rochdale and Tranmere won promotion from div 4 and voted Reading player of the season. You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

You and Maguire obviously never saw him. End of.

[Para Handy]

How can you compare those names to Friday? They all played in European/World cups against the best defenders on the planet, and were voted European players of the year.
Friday played against Workington, Southport, Rochdale and Tranmere won promotion from div 4 and voted Reading player of the season. You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

Firstly, describing Robin as a drug taking piss head does your argument no credit. It's arguable whether it's true. It's entirely irrelevant to his skill as a footballer, and to me it smacks of a spurious and small minded attempt to put him down.

I'm not sure that anyone that saw Robin play in the 70's will ever be able to convince the younger generation what it was like. There's not really any comparison you can draw these days. Character wise, think Gazza, Rodney Marsh, etc. Flawed but a genius. In the days Robin played for us we were mostly in the 4th Division. You lot think you've got it bad in the Championship! Robin was a breath of fresh air. The Mass Sarr of his day but a sustained one.

For those of us that saw him play, he'll remain in our memory for ever, for various reasons. I saw the goal against Tranmere, but I also like to remember him for a couple of other reasons, one for his humour, and two for being a normal bloke. Paid around the same as I was not £30,000 a week more. Yeah, he had his problems but at least you could see him down the Boar's Head every week

Robin Friday. You just can't explain him unless you saw him.

[Svlad Cjelli]

How can you compare those names to Friday? They all played in European/World cups against the best defenders on the planet, and were voted European players of the year.
Friday played against Workington, Southport, Rochdale and Tranmere won promotion from div 4 and voted Reading player of the season. You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

But at the same time the defenders RF were playing against were utterly brutal - some of the tackles that were routine and unremarkable in the 70s would be straight red cards and condemnation on MotD today. For a skilful flair player to succeed he needed special skills, which he had in abundance.

For me the parallel was George Best - he had similar skills, and a similar attitude where he'd beat someone and then beat them again (because he could) - and a similar approach to life. But he didn't have the same opportunities as Best or the same people who tried to save himself from himself - for a while, at least.

[Bandini]

[You are living in cuckoo land if you think that drug taking piss head is in the same bracket as Cryuff and Guillett.

[Wimb]

It's so so hard to compare players from different era's especially when so little video footage exists of a guy like Friday.

However players always get better the longer they've been retired and seem better in comparisson if they had a bit of flair or a particular affinity with the club. For example I wonder how people would vote if asked who is/was the better player between Parkinson and Karacan.

[Para Handy]

It's so so hard to compare players from different era's especially when so little video footage exists of a guy like Friday.

However players always get better the longer they've been retired and seem better in comparisson if they had a bit of flair or a particular affinity with the club. For example I wonder how people would vote if asked who is/was the better player between Parkinson and Karacan.

LOL