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Average Customer Rating:

Doubt if Robin Friday was the greatest but

Customer Rating:

still not a bad way to pass an evening. Obviously a talented bloke but dispersing the book with clippings of Best and Bowles to try and elevate him into their company is a cheap trick. Surely the whole argument is undermined in the first chapter when his twin brother gets picked on teams and he can't. Maybe the twin was the greatest? What I did enjoy about this book was the trip back to when footballers were ordinary blokes and lived in the community, when football matches still had a raw edge to them on and off the pitch and when getting up off your arse and going to the game was the only way to see it.

Over rated

Customer Rating:

I was really looking forward to this book with the full story of the enigmatic Friday. I found it to be very disappointing. Its written in a diary style that doesnt work and features lots of comments and quotes that add nothing to the general story. Its riddled with factual errors - scores, fixtures and results - that suggests a lack of proper research. The worst part for me was Fridays life after he finished playing football. In a page and a half you are taken from 1977 to his untimely death in 1990. What went on his life in this period, the reader can only guess at. If he was as good a player as is suggested, then he surely deserves a better biography than this.

-	Customer Rating:
Good football book to read, although it starts rather slow. Personally I would have liked to have read a bit more anecdotes about his off field antics than all those copy and paste match reports from newspapers. All in all an interesting read though.

THE MAN , THE LEGEND.

Customer Rating:

where do you start? i met the guy several times,usually in the pub on a saturday lunchtime! he was a very aproachable guy and would have a drink and a chat with you. could you do that with any footballers now ?.a more skilfull and inventive player i have yet to see, and thats saying something. the book will paint a pretty good picture of the man for all you poor unfortunates who never had the chance to see him play.! when i think back to seeing him play it still sends a chill down my spine ! enjoy the read .

Genius

Customer Rating:

I have been a Reading supporter since the age of 4, when my Dad used to take me to see every home game from around 1970 through to the day Neil Webb left the club to join Portsmouth for 88,000 pounds. Often I used to think it was punishment for not doing my homework, so low was the standard of many of the games, players and (especially) referees. The likes of the Wagstaff Brothers, Bobby Hunt, Wayne Wanklyn, Roger Joslyn hardly made it worthwhile getting out of bed for. However Robin Friday was. Signed from (if I remember correctly) non-league Hayes for about 5 grand, he was so far ahead of the rest of the players in the division it wasn't funny. Tall, gangly, no shin-pads, bow legs he didn't look like a footballer but the skill he had would have taken anyone's breath away. I was hoping someone would have some footage of the goal he got against Tranmere. It was 5-0 (to put the record straight) - I think John Murray got a hat-trick and Friday got 2 in the top of the table clash (we were third and they were fourth); I remember before the game (I was only 10 at the time), talking with my Dad and Uncle about what the score might be ("2-1, 1-0, 3-1") but nothing could prepare us for the game we were about to see. Reading were awesome. What I remember most about the game (it was an evening match) was the way the people (us included) in the stands got behind the team. The roar of "READING, READING, READING" from EVERYONE in the ground was amazing, especially when we had got used to 4 thousand a game crowds with only the South Bank crew making any organised noise at all. Now the goal. I remember Friday a long way out getting the ball - I remember him connecting almost with his back to goal, and I remember the ball hitting the back of the net with the goalkeeper nowhere. There was a picture in the Reading Evening Post the following day of Clive Thomas who was reffing the game, his head in his hands, not able to believe what he had just witnessed. I am sure you can still probably find a copy of the picture somewhere in the archives. Thomas said it was the best goal he had ever seen. I went to see Friday's last game for Reading, away to Oxford. By that time he had agreed terms with Cardiff for something like 33 grand. He was rubbish in that game. I never saw him play for Cardiff so the book helps enormously in this sense as it describes the brilliance he still used to show every week. Years later after his death I was talking to a guy that used to be in the Drugs Squad. He said he was chasing after some druggie in the Central London one day, finally managing to catch up with him in Trafalgar Square. He spun the druggie round and saw a face he recognised. "Wait a minute, it's Friday isn't it? Robin Friday?" whereupon he took the bag of heroin from Friday's hand, went to the nearest drain and dropped it down between the gaps in the grating. "On your way. That's for the goal you scored against Tranmere", and he let Friday go. Whether it's true or not I don't know but it makes for a good, albeit sad, story. When I heard he had died alone in some squat of an overdose I was really sad. I was really disapointed to see that the Evening Post only had a small article on the back page about him the day after he died. A disgrace. There should have been a national holiday. I am glad this book exists, but at the same time saddened that there is no real footage of the man in action. Now there is a camera at every game in the land. SO for those of you that never saw him play, still buy the book because it is really a very good read. And for those that did see him play, then this book will give you goosebumps as you cast your minds back 30 years and realise how lucky you were.