A CITY CULT ICON
A new book revisits the life of the player dubbed football’s greatest cult hero – Robin Friday. David Owens spoke to author Stuart Kane about his emotional journey with the player who burned brightly but briefly in the 1970s...
IT’S one of football’s most iconic photographs.
In grainy black and white, Cardiff City cult hero Robin Friday graphically dismisses an opposition goalkeeper with a brazen two-fingered salute.
What it represents is a snapshot of a golden age frozen in time, when the beautiful game was awash with mavericks who played as they lived their lives, with wild abandon.
These were hedonistic entertainers, footballers as rock ‘n’ roll stars, exhibiting a lust for life that they demonstrated at full tilt on and off the pitch.
The likes of George Best, Stan Bowles and Rodney Marsh – these were flamboyant geniuses who partied hard and engaged in the pursuit of pleasure with the same ribald joy as they did finding the back of the net.
Of course, the subject in that famous picture never attained the giddy footballing heights of the aforementioned stars, nor the associated riches of fame.
Part rock star, part footballer, he was considered by many to be good enough to play for England, but Friday retired aged 25, exiting the pitch for a life marked by battles with alcohol and drug addiction.
His is a tragic tale of unfulfilled talent, a flame that burned brightly but briefly before being extinguished at only 38 years old.
Friday lived fast and died young. His professional football career lasted just four years, yet he’s still considered Reading’s greatest ever player and Cardiff’s all-time cult hero. He unwittingly created an infamy that lives on to this day.
His legend was no doubt emboldened and reawakened to a wider audience in 1996 when Welsh rock ‘n’ roll frontiersmen Super Furry Animals released the single The Man Don’t Give A F***, which used a colourised version of the iconic picture taken on April 16, 1977, at Ninian Park.
Having clashed repeatedly with Luton Town goalkeeper Milija Aleksic, Friday celebrated scoring by trotting past his nemesis flicking the “V-sign” in his direction, much to the delight of Bluebirds fans.
A book with a title that neatly sums up Friday’s legend – The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw, co-written by former NME journalist Paolo Hewitt and Oasis bass player Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, published in 1997 – only served to add to the mythical aura of the player.
That image of Friday as the outsider, the rebel, sticking it to “the man”, is something which appealed to author Stuart Kane, who has written the first of two books about the footballer.
The book, Man Friday: The First Half, is out now. The author is at pains to point out that this is not another autobiography, rather an autobiographical fiction with the writer attempting to get inside the player’s head, retracing his early life to nonleague football through to his league debut with Reading.
First encountering Friday in the 1990s, thanks to the Furries, it was that infamous picture that piqued his interest – and a late friend who inspired the book.
“The first time I came across Robin Friday was on the front cover of the Super Furry Animals CD in the 1990s,” recalls Stuart, before explaining where the idea for the book came from. “It was a strange coming together of events back in 2015, when I had to write a short story for a [creative writing] course that I was doing at the University of Birmingham.
“I was scrambling around for ideas when the tutor held up The Damned United. I’d read it before, so reread it again. Then a friend of mine died very suddenly – it was a massive shock.
“The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw was his favourite football book and one I’d read many years ago. My friend was 39, a year older than Robin Friday when he passed away, but both had left with ‘open verdicts’ and both men were born in west London.
“I suddenly got this idea that I could write a short biographical fiction on Robin Friday. I started the short story in earnest and, after it was finished, I got some really great feedback from fellow writers and my tutor during a writers’ workshop.
“I thought that it would all end there, but something kept gnawing at me to turn my short story into a novel. I have always felt compelled to write it as there is a lot of mystery surrounding Robin Friday’s story.
“I wanted to recreate something that I would like to read myself, but that would also appeal to those interested in such an amazing story.
“I also think that perhaps I had one particular reader in mind, the man himself.”
So what was it about Friday that fascinated him?
“I think I might answer by asking, ‘What isn’t fascinating about Robin Friday?,’” he says. “The whole of his story is captivating. He was a very complex character and I hope that my account shows that.
“As a story, it really does have everything – love, crime, disloyalty, friendship, humour and battling football matches. I think it’s also the fact that there is very little archive footage of Robin playing and this helps cement the legend but, make no mistake, he was some player.”
Stuart says he also wanted to challenge some of the notions and misconceptions about the player.
“Because there was so little known about him and some of what’s known is just simply wrong, and I wanted to challenge that,” says the writer, a keen footballer himself when younger, having had trials with Aston Villa.
“I think when you get a reputation as a joker and hellraiser it becomes tough to shake that off, no matter what you do outside that stereotype. I was also interested in the pop culture aspect, how Robin’s story has grown wings, so I felt a biographical novel would suit him.
“What was difficult was trying to stay objective and to make sure that what I was writing did not become ‘fan fiction.’
“It still surprises me how many people haven’t heard of Robin Friday outside Reading and Cardiff.”
The project has evidently consumed the writer, who has conducted thorough and extensive research for the book, becoming something of an authority on the life of the player as a result.
“I can honestly say hundreds of hours of research went into the book,” says the 45-year-old. “I sat at microfiches at the British Library and Reading Central Library and also did research online. I visited Cathays Library in Cardiff too. I wandered the streets of Reading and Cardiff trying to take it all in.
“There is probably not a thing written about Robin Friday that I haven’t read or seen unless, of course, someone is posting something as we speak, but, of course, I’ll read that later. I was almost obsessive with the football facts, but I’ve been like that since I was a kid.
“Then, of course, I had to sit down and recreate the scenes and the dialogue and make it all fit together like a tapestry.”
By his own admission, biographical fiction is a tricky literary sell – taking artistic licence with someone’s life can be fraught with difficulties. I wondered, then, did he find himself having that conversation when he started the project?
“You’re right when you say it is fraught with difficulties. Biographical fiction is a really hard sell, particularly when it’s about a working-class footballer.
“Working-class fiction is still seen as subversive and, by throwing in the biographical aspect, it becomes even more tricky.
“I had many sleepless nights while writing this book, worrying about what to include and what not to include.
“What I have tried to do is stay true to the spirit and character of Robin Friday and be respectful to those who were around him during his life.
“I think at the start of the project I wasn’t too concerned because, at that point, I was just writing a short story. As I got deeper into the project, I realised that I had to be very mindful.
“I was lucky in that I got the chance to interview [The Damned United author] David Peace about his work on Brian Clough and Bill Shankly and this gave me great insight.
“I also interviewed Kevin Barry, who had written Beatlebone, which is about John Lennon and won the Goldsmiths Prize in 2015.”
Unsurprisingly, getting inside the head of such a troubled but mercurial soul was not an easy task.
“After all the research I’ve done, and by following in his footsteps, I got a real feel for his character,” says Stuart. “At times it was a difficult job, no doubt about it.
“When I first started writing it the story was in the first person, but I soon realised that just wouldn’t suit the project and wouldn’t allow for some of the other voices to come into the story.
“At times it has felt like Robin Friday has been looking over my shoulder and saying, ‘Put that in, put this in.’
“It’s been an extraordinary experience.
“By going back into all the old articles from the 1960s and 1970s, you pick up things and, by visiting the places, you get a sense of how it used