23h • General discussion
The Man That Didn’t Give a F**k
English football in the 1970s was overflowing with so-called 'characters.' There were hard men, drinkers, womanisers, mavericks, and self-destructive geniuses in abundance. It was the age of George Best, Charlie George, and flamboyant footballers who behaved more like rock stars than professional athletes. Yet towering above all of them in sheer chaos, talent, and complete indifference to authority was a player most modern fans have never heard of: Robin Friday. And the strange thing is, that would probably have suited him perfectly.
Robin Friday was born in Acton, West London, on the 27th of July 1952, alongside his twin brother Tony. The brothers were raised largely by their grandparents in a prefab in Acton Green and grew up in a world of post-war austerity, football obsession, and perpetual low-level mischief. Their father took them to their first professional football match at the age of two — a Brentford fixture, the club having family significance because their grandfather had once played for them. Football was stitched into Robin’s life from the beginning.
From a young age, Robin’s natural talent was impossible to ignore. His father later recalled the boy balancing oranges on the back of his neck using only his feet, juggling them effortlessly before flicking them back into the air. While his twin brother Tony concentrated on school, Robin devoted himself almost entirely to football, truancy, and girls. Tony later remarked, with weary affection, that Robin “was always bunking off and having birds around the park.”
Scouts quickly noticed him. Friday passed through the youth systems of Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, and Chelsea before he had even reached his mid-teens. Yet despite possessing outrageous technical ability, every club eventually gave up on him. Robin simply refused to play within systems or accept discipline. He was aggressive, individualistic, and impossible to coach. By fifteen he had left school and drifted into manual labour as a trainee plasterer.
Unfortunately, Robin appeared to dislike ordinary work even more than he disliked organised football. Plastering lasted two months. Van driving bored him senseless. Window cleaning fared little better. His father later summed up his son’s attitude toward employment with admirable simplicity: “He just didn’t care.”
With little interest in conventional life, Robin drifted into petty crime, though even there he lacked commitment. He was arrested for theft and sent to Feltham Borstal, serving fourteen months. Oddly enough, prison proved transformative. Playing football for the institution’s representative side rekindled his love for the game and reminded everyone around him that his talent was exceptional.
Released in 1971, Friday attended a trial with semi-professional side Walthamstow Avenue and was signed almost immediately. Before long he moved again, this time to Hayes FC, lured by slightly better wages and fewer expectations. At Hayes he developed a reputation not merely as a brilliant footballer, but as an unstoppable liability.
One famous incident perfectly captured the essence of Robin Friday. After disappearing on an all-night drinking session with a group of road workers, he failed to appear for a match until ten minutes before full-time. Hayes were drawing 0–0 and down to ten men. Friday staggered onto the pitch visibly intoxicated, barely able to run straight. The opposition defenders ignored him entirely, assuming he was incapable of affecting the game. Moments later, he scored the winner.
In January 1974, after scoring 46 goals in 67 appearances, Friday signed for Reading for the princely sum of £750. His arrival was less than diplomatic. During his very first training session, he enthusiastically hacked down several established first-team players, injuring three badly enough to rule them out of the following fixture.
Yet, Reading supporters adored him almost immediately. Friday played football with a kind of joyous violence. He was fearless, inventive, technically outrageous, and entirely unconcerned with consequences. After returning early from injury against Exeter, he spent much of the next match fouling opponents in retaliation for previous tackles. Simultaneously, however, he scored goals at an astonishing rate. The Reading Evening Post marvelled that the club had been transformed by his arrival after he scored sixteen goals in five games.
Off the pitch, meanwhile, Robin descended deeper into glorious chaos. He drank industrial quantities of Colt 45 malt liquor and was repeatedly banned from pubs throughout Reading. The Boar’s Head reportedly barred him on ten separate occasions. One night, after drinking through closing time, he entered Reading’s notoriously grim Churchill’s nightclub wearing a giant fur coat. Once on the dancefloor, he dropped the coat dramatically to reveal that underneath he was entirely naked apart from a pair of hobnailed boots.
At the end of the 1973–74 season, Friday celebrated by having finger tattoos removed and vanishing to a hippie commune in Cornwall. He failed to report back for pre-season training, causing confusion and panic at Reading. Eventually he reappeared during a friendly against Watford, having done no preparation whatsoever, and immediately outperformed everyone else on the pitch.
Teammates increasingly viewed him with a mixture of admiration and terror. Winger John Murray later reflected that some of Friday’s antics were hilarious while others were simply insane. During one away trip, the team coach stopped so Friday could relieve himself beside a graveyard. Spotting stone angels on nearby graves, Robin promptly climbed over the wall and stole several of them, intending to place them beside the sleeping club chairman. Reading manager Charlie Hurley had to patiently explain to him why grave robbery was socially unacceptable.
On another occasion, Friday wandered into the team hotel carrying a swan he had found outside. Again, Hurley intervened.
For all the madness, Robin Friday was genuinely extraordinary on the football pitch. He terrified defenders. He refused to wear shin pads because he considered them pointless. He attacked constantly and with complete disregard for his own safety. By 1976, Reading supporters viewed him less as a footballer and more as some kind of feral football deity.
Then came the goal.
On the 31st of March 1976, against Tranmere Rovers, Friday scored what referee Clive Thomas later described as the greatest goal he had ever witnessed. A high pass arrived awkwardly near Reading’s penalty area. Friday controlled it with his chest, accidentally spun away from goal, then — without hesitation — launched an overhead volley from roughly thirty yards while facing the wrong direction. The ball screamed into the top corner with such force that Thomas later claimed it would have broken the post had it missed.
Thomas, who had officiated matches involving Pelé and Johan Cruyff, called it the best goal he had ever seen. Friday’s response was pure Robin Friday: “Really? You should come down here more often, I do that every week.”
But by now, drugs and drink were beginning to consume him. Clubs such as Queens Park Rangers and West Ham considered signing him but hesitated, terrified they would be unable to control him. Reading manager Charlie Hurley eventually demanded that Friday abandon hard drugs for the sake of the squad. Robin instead requested a transfer.
Cardiff City finally took the gamble in late 1976. Robin himself was deeply unimpressed by the move and attempted to avoid paying his train fare to Wales by travelling with only a platform ticket. Unsurprisingly, he was arrested at Cardiff station and had to be bailed out by his new manager before signing his contract.
His debut, however, was magnificent. Against Fulham on New Year’s Day 1977, Friday scored twice in a 3–0 victory featuring former England captain Bobby Moore. During the game he was photographed gleefully grabbing Moore’s testicles. Cardiff manager Jimmy Andrews excitedly phoned Hurley afterwards to praise his new signing, only for Hurley to caution him ominously: “You’ve only had him four days.”
Sure enough, the chaos resumed. Friday vanished for weeks at a time, skipped matches, ignored teammates, and lived almost entirely on alcohol and narcotics. One teammate recalled him leaving games immediately afterwards carrying nothing but a bag of dry martinis.
Then came the Mark Lawrenson incident.
During a match against Brighton in 1977, Friday deliberately provoked future pundit Mark Lawrenson into tackling him before kicking him squarely in the face and receiving a red card. Furious at being sent off for what he presumably considered a perfectly reasonable reaction, Friday stormed into Brighton’s dressing room, located Lawrenson’s kitbag, and defecated into it. Cardiff promptly cancelled his contract.
And just like that, his professional career was over by the age of twenty-five.
Robin returned to London and drifted back into part-time plastering, drugs, and obscurity. On the 22nd of December 1990, he was found dead in his council flat in Acton after suffering a heart attack, possibly linked to heroin use. He was only thirty-eight years old.
Yet, Robin Friday became a cult legend after death precisely because he seemed to embody a kind of reckless freedom now impossible in modern football. In 1996, the Welsh band Super Furry Animals released The Man Don’t Give a Fuck in his honour, using the famous image of Friday flipping V-signs at goalkeeper Milija Aleksic as the single artwork.
Soon after Friday left Cardiff, Reading manager Maurice Evans once told him that if he simply settled down for a few years, he could play for England. Robin listened politely before asking Evans his age. When Evans answered, Friday replied:
“Well, the thing is, I’m half your age and I’ve lived twice your life.”
He probably had.
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The Man That Didn’t Give a F**k
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