Hewitt Paolo - The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: the Robin Friday Story

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About the Author

Paul McGuigan (or Guigsy as he is known worldwide) is the bass player of Oasis. Since childhood he has been a fervent Manchester City supporter, and through his support has learned much about life in general. A promising player himself, he had trials with Oldham and Stockport among others before a knee injury cut short his football aspirations. While on tour with the band in America, Guigsy came across a magazine article about Robin Friday and was inspired to find out more about the genius maverick player. This book is the result of his investigations.

Paolo Hewitt began writing for Melody Maker at the tender age of 19, moving on to the NME two years later. A highly respected music writer, he is the author of four books. One, Heavens Promise, was the first novel to document the acid house scene in Britain. The others, The Jam: A Beat Concerto, Small Faces: The Young Mods Forgotten Story and Getting High: The Adventures of Oasis, are all best-selling music biographies. He lives in north London and supports Spurs, Woking and Napoli. He has no idea what he would do if any of them were to meet in a major game.

Sometimes youd think that he wasnt interested in football, but he was. It was just his way. He could be very laid-back. Often youd read in the papers that there was a change when he got on the pitch. Im not saying he was laid-back all the time, because he was a nutcase anyway. He was always rowing, always getting into rucks, even off the pitch. If he was in the pub and it went off, he would be there. He was a handful but he wasnt a liberty-taker is what Im trying to say.

Tony Friday, 1997

THE GREATEST FOOTBALLER YOU NEVER SAW

THE ROBIN FRIDAY STORY

Paul McGuigan and Paolo Hewitt

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licenced or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781780570211

Version 1.0

www.mainstreampublishing.com

Copyright Paul McGuigan and Paolo Hewitt, 1998

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by

MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY (EDINBURGH) LTD

7 Albany Street

Edinburgh EH1 3UG

This edition 1998

Reprinted 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001

ISBN 1 84018 108 7

No part this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magasine, newspaper or broadcast

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

For all of Robins family

Foreword

First, a winning title from Guigsy and Paolo; it says it all. Not a lot of people did get the opportunity to see Robin Friday play. He had a few seasons at Reading in the old Fourth Division and one at Cardiff in the old Second, retiring from the game when he was, by todays standards, not that far past the promising youngster category.

He wasnt a player who seared into my consciousness as a football crazy kid, but I do remember the name. I grew up scanning team lists in Goal, Shoot and the Sunday papers like I scanned the pop charts, displaying that near autistic obsessiveness that characterises many young and not-so-young boys from these islands. It was a name which struck out for its appealing associations, like Derek Posse of Millwall a few years earlier. Maybe your childhood and adolescent subconscious leanings towards certain names, such as Friday and Posse, shape your future behaviour and attitudes.

But I knew nothing of Robin Friday until Paolo, with his customary infectious enthusiasm, started telling me about this guy who played for Reading and was brilliant and didnt give a fuck. While I was ignorant of the player and the person, I instantly recognised the archetype: the monstrously gifted talent with a cavalier spirit and a hedonistic urge to live life to the full. In other words, someone gloriously unsuited to the discipline of professional sport. George Best, shadowed as a reference point in this book, was perhaps the patron saint of the breed, but he was just so shockingly brilliant that it was impossible for him not to rule the world. Best would go on to fulfil his potential, gracing the green of Hibernian Football Club, after a promising career with various provincial outfits in the English Leagues.

In Scotland, weve produced many such wayward talents. At the first HibsHearts game I ever attended, the mighty Greens were firm favourites to win. They lost 31. The reason was this decrepit-looking guy in the middle of the park whom nobody could get the ball from. I remember booing this geriatric Jambo bastard and subsequently getting into a row from my dad, who told me that the guy was Willie Hamilton, and that he was The Man. Hamilton had been a Hibs hero of the past and had returned to Edinburgh after a spell in the south. He was described by none other than the late, great Jock Stein as the best player he had ever seen. It was Stein, in his brief period as Hibs manager a few years earlier, who managed to get the best out of Willie.

Like many such personalities, Hamilton thrived on the big occasion. Back in 67 he gave Ferenc Puskas a footballing lesson a. Hibs beat Real Madrid 20 at The Stadium. It was the first game overseas the European Champions had lost for ages and their first ever defeat on British soil. A few days later Hamilton went to Ibrox to do the same to his great kindred spirit, Jim Baxter, as the Greens came out 42 winners over Rangers. Hamilton, though, won only one Scotland cap, against Finland in 1965. Like Robin Friday, he worked in the building trade (Willie was a brickie, Robin an asphalter). A sadder similarity was that both men were to have short lives, Hamiltons death in Canada occurring only ten years after his sole representative honour.

Rather than indulge in bullshit pseudo-psychological speculation about Robin Fridays motivations, or ghoulishly chart his decline, the authors give Robins tale the dignity his skills and spirit deserve. They choose to let the people close to the man tell his story in their own words. My favourite passage comes from former Reading coach Maurice Evans who took Friday aside and told him: Robin, if you would just settle down for three or four years you could play for England. The player replied: Yeah, but Ive had a far better time than youve ever had in your life. (This was an echo of the now-famous George Best incident, when a waiter interviewed him in a hotel room where the bed was decorated by Miss World, bottles of champagne and piles of money. The waiter was there to find out where it had all gone wrong for George.) To his great credit and honesty, Maurice Evans was big enough to consider Fridays retort and admit, That may be right.

Things have changed since Robin Friday graced Reading in the 1970s. In todays game cash is now the undisputed king. The media focus is almost exclusively on the richer clubs. The pressure on fans, especially younger ones, is to become glory hunters: mercenaries following the highest-paid and most celebrated clubs. This means that the fans become celebrators of a clubs achievements rather than supporters of the club of their community. There is an important difference. The celebrator will follow the club, buy the merchandise, and, of course, read the obligatory bland star biography, ghost-written by some local or national newsman where every player is made to sound like Oscar Wilde on valium.

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