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The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: The Robin Friday Story
Robin Friday was an exceptional footballer who should have played for England. But he never did—why? Because Robin Friday was a man who would not bow down to anyone, who refused to take life seriously, and who lived every moment as if it were his last. Loved and admired by everyone who saw him, Friday also had a dark side—troubled, strong-minded, reckless, he would end up destroying himself. Tragically, after years of alcohol and drug abuse, he died at the age of 38 without ever having fulfilled his potential. This book provides the first full appreciation of a man too long forgotten by the world of football.
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 9, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
June 21, 2020
So many people recommended this. I'll know never to trust their opinions ever again. I'll never get the time back spent reading this tripe. Thankfully the book was so short it didn't take long.
It concerns bargain basement George Best..footballing 'star' Robin Friday. He was apparently a talented player in the lower divisions in the 1970s. He played for Reading and Cardiff in the third tier of English football. his career spanned from 1974-77. He could have played for Englnad. Err.. no. He couldn't.
The book is very poorly written (you should know when the main writer is a guitarist in Oasis). That is when it's not just reprints of newspaper clippings. There are quotes from his family and from various managers and comrades, etc.
The ones from his family are laughable. They come over as pretty dumb (unless it's the poor writing), and all they do is make excuses, over and over and over for Robin's frankly scum-like actions against various people, most women he meets and various others. The excuse was that he was a maverick. He was a tinker. he was special.
Well.. no. He wasn't. he was an under-achieving scumbag who wasted any talent he had. What talent he had is debateable because he never reached a level high enough for any real evaluation of him to be made. It's all hearsay. By his family in the main, and then his mates. It's pathetic.
A boring book about a boring man... of a kind we all know and tolerate... until we don't.
A squalid, horrible book.
It concerns bargain basement George Best..footballing 'star' Robin Friday. He was apparently a talented player in the lower divisions in the 1970s. He played for Reading and Cardiff in the third tier of English football. his career spanned from 1974-77. He could have played for Englnad. Err.. no. He couldn't.
The book is very poorly written (you should know when the main writer is a guitarist in Oasis). That is when it's not just reprints of newspaper clippings. There are quotes from his family and from various managers and comrades, etc.
The ones from his family are laughable. They come over as pretty dumb (unless it's the poor writing), and all they do is make excuses, over and over and over for Robin's frankly scum-like actions against various people, most women he meets and various others. The excuse was that he was a maverick. He was a tinker. he was special.
Well.. no. He wasn't. he was an under-achieving scumbag who wasted any talent he had. What talent he had is debateable because he never reached a level high enough for any real evaluation of him to be made. It's all hearsay. By his family in the main, and then his mates. It's pathetic.
A boring book about a boring man... of a kind we all know and tolerate... until we don't.
A squalid, horrible book.
March 18, 2022
Short, and disappointing. I'd been waiting to read this for years, but know Hewitt as a pretty hit-or-miss guy for me. It's a great story, but the formatting is essentially just news clippings which does not make for an interesting read. The oral history component is much stronger, but also less prevalent. The bits about TV and pop music singles are apparently just shunted in if Hewitt and Guigsy found them personally interesting? I don't know. I liked it. I wish I could have liked it more.
January 26, 2024
So much to like about this story.
To learn about Robins life in a short time, and feel like I’ve known him since childhood is incredible.
I loved the way Robins was portrayed through the news columns and interviews.
A player I wish I could have seen but am grateful to know of none the less.
To learn about Robins life in a short time, and feel like I’ve known him since childhood is incredible.
I loved the way Robins was portrayed through the news columns and interviews.
A player I wish I could have seen but am grateful to know of none the less.
December 19, 2018
Interesting football biog, told through snippets of anecdotes and interviews with friends, family, professionals, managers and footballers. Friday was a lower leagues George Best.
September 7, 2012
Recomended on Talksport as a must read but very disappointing, pages and pages of quotes throughout rather than just a written story, leaves you wanting to know more about his crazy lifestyle that leads to his early passing. Also flashes past his time after football prior to his death.
Sounded like quite a character, very similar to a George Best, Frank Worthington or Stan Bowles.
Ok book but definately not great..
Sounded like quite a character, very similar to a George Best, Frank Worthington or Stan Bowles.
Ok book but definately not great..
March 23, 2018
As a football fanatic for nearly four decades, I've read a fair few books about football & footballers. I avoid the ones that focus on the sport's biggest personalities, the ones that tend to be cliched & uninteresting. Instead, I prefer ones that reveal something about the sport or the sportsman. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw is the appropriately named biography of Robin Friday, an English footballer whose short-lived career took place outside the top flight of English football in the 1970s. After a few unsuccessful trials at English clubs, Friday earned his living as an asphalter, but also played regularly as an amateur. Friday was a skilful player who loved the game & loved terrorising defences & scoring spectacular goals. He lacked a bit of pace, but was tough and took a lot of punishment from the defenders who had to resort to unfair methods to stop Friday. He loved to provoke opposition players, but also regularly got himself into trouble with match officials when Friday reacted badly to similar provocations from the opposition. Friday's onfield skills & unpredictable antics made him a firm favourite at all the clubs he played for, but his equally unpredictable antics off it scared off scouts and managers who were unprepared to take a risk on such a maverick talent. Eventually, a former Irish international footballer, Charlie Hurley, gambled on Friday for the then fourth division club he was managing. Friday soon became a cult hero at Reading and was a huge part of their attempts to get out of the fourth division. The book is credited to musician Paul McGuigan & music journalist Paolo Hewitt and it reads more like the biography of a rock star than a footballer. McGuigan & Hewitt have done a great job in conducting extensive interviews with Friday's family & former teammates & managers at Reading & Cardiff as well as collecting match reports from The Reading Evening Post & the South Wales Echo. The writers use the voices of their interviewees & the regional sports reporters to tell the fascinating story of a little known player who didn't take himself too seriously and this may have been why he never have capitalised on the talent he obviously possessed.
March 10, 2022
This is the biography of Robin Friday, an exceptionally gifted footballer who should have played for England, but never did. Those who saw him were in awe. But lacking in self control, and living a reckless life, he pushed his body to its limits and left the world all too soon at only 38.
Not so much written by Paul McGuigan and Paulo Hewitt, but researched, compiled and edited to perfection…this book is a series of quotes taken from family, friends, colleagues and spectators of Robin Friday placed between match commentaries, with TV listings and sporting events added for additional context.
The book begins with a brilliantly and passionately written introduction by Irvine Welsh before moving into the first chapter…providing context around Robin’s family, home life and upbringing. It then progresses a year at a time towards his entry into professional football, career, retirement and subsequent death.
I appreciated that the writers left the quotes and extracts as they were originally…with no censoring, or creative interpretation. Reflections are shared through the eyes of those that knew Robin, his flaws openly presented and not sugar coated…you feel endeared to Robin and feel like you can truly see him too.
I would not say that you do need to have an interest in football to read this book…there are a lot of match commentaries, but you don’t need to like or be familiar with the sport to appreciate the insight these give into Robin’s character.
It is an entertaining, but gritty and truly heart-breaking book. And, whilst it celebrates the brilliance and the best of this man, it also shows his worst…I will include trigger warnings at the end of the review.
I loved reading this book and think it is perhaps the greatest eulogy that could’ve been given for this true one of a kind…Robin Friday’s memory stays alive through the pages of this book and I felt every emotion reading it.
TWs: prejudicial language, alcohol and drug use and abuse.
Not so much written by Paul McGuigan and Paulo Hewitt, but researched, compiled and edited to perfection…this book is a series of quotes taken from family, friends, colleagues and spectators of Robin Friday placed between match commentaries, with TV listings and sporting events added for additional context.
The book begins with a brilliantly and passionately written introduction by Irvine Welsh before moving into the first chapter…providing context around Robin’s family, home life and upbringing. It then progresses a year at a time towards his entry into professional football, career, retirement and subsequent death.
I appreciated that the writers left the quotes and extracts as they were originally…with no censoring, or creative interpretation. Reflections are shared through the eyes of those that knew Robin, his flaws openly presented and not sugar coated…you feel endeared to Robin and feel like you can truly see him too.
I would not say that you do need to have an interest in football to read this book…there are a lot of match commentaries, but you don’t need to like or be familiar with the sport to appreciate the insight these give into Robin’s character.
It is an entertaining, but gritty and truly heart-breaking book. And, whilst it celebrates the brilliance and the best of this man, it also shows his worst…I will include trigger warnings at the end of the review.
I loved reading this book and think it is perhaps the greatest eulogy that could’ve been given for this true one of a kind…Robin Friday’s memory stays alive through the pages of this book and I felt every emotion reading it.
TWs: prejudicial language, alcohol and drug use and abuse.
April 17, 2019
An entertaining and absorbing book, although not so much of a true bio as a collection of quotes from people who knew Robin Friday plus heavily edited match reports from the local newspaper on those occasions when his name got mentioned. After he left football during the 1977-78 season, we find out nothing more about him other than that he had an untimely death some years later. Gifted though he undoubtedly was, I am sure this type of book could be written about any number of maverick footballing geniuses - indeed, George Best and Stan Bowles are frequently name-checked throughput.
Whilst this will appeal to readers who enjoyed ‘Fever Pitch’ or ‘The Damned United’, it is a very different type of book. And it did lack a bit of editing - there are a lot of mistakes in the text. But what did come across is the charisma and talent of this largely forgotten lower-league star, a working class hero in the old sense - those of us of a certain age all went to school with a Robin Friday. A very satisfying read.
Whilst this will appeal to readers who enjoyed ‘Fever Pitch’ or ‘The Damned United’, it is a very different type of book. And it did lack a bit of editing - there are a lot of mistakes in the text. But what did come across is the charisma and talent of this largely forgotten lower-league star, a working class hero in the old sense - those of us of a certain age all went to school with a Robin Friday. A very satisfying read.
March 9, 2026
Some footballers leave behind trophies; others leave behind stories. Robin Friday belongs firmly to the latter camp - a player of mercurial talent whose flashes of brilliance were matched only by his chaos. On the pitch, he could glide past defenders and score outrageous goals; just as often, his poor discipline led to suspensions, fights, and self-sabotage. His career burned briefly in the lower leagues, and his untimely death at 38 only deepened the myth. The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw (1997) by Paolo Hewitt and Paul McGuigan (Yes, 'Guigsy' the former Oasis bass player) captures that myth with affection and energy. The book thrives on anecdotes, painting Friday as both genius and lost soul. Its limitations are clear: memories conflict, details blur, and with no filmed footage of him on the pitch, the legend sometimes overshadows hard facts. Yet that haziness feels fitting. It’s less a definitive biography than a love letter to raw, unruly talent and a romantic and primitive era where cult heroes truly engaged with the working class fan.
November 7, 2018
OVERALL OPINION - If you are a sports fan who enjoys books about flawed geniuses then it's worth picking up if you get the chance. If you are a Reading fan then I strongly recomemed it as it has given me another layer of understanding of my club, being too young to have watched Robin Friday play. Like the man himself the book is not without its flaws, reading like an edit of interviews and newspapers articles rather than having its own narrative. But it does convey the highs and lows of a extraordinary character and leaves it to the reader to make their own judgement.
THE BEST PART OF.....The sense of excitement that Robin Friday gave to a club and its fans that had not experiencing a single promotion in 50 years. It was also great to be reminded about how different football was in the 1970's both in the players wages, habits and lifestyles but also how much more physical the game was.
THE BEST PART OF.....The sense of excitement that Robin Friday gave to a club and its fans that had not experiencing a single promotion in 50 years. It was also great to be reminded about how different football was in the 1970's both in the players wages, habits and lifestyles but also how much more physical the game was.
February 14, 2021
Friday was a genius. For me, as a schoolboy on the terraces at Elm Park for an all too fleeting time in the 70’s he was Football. He would beat a player and then wait for him to catch up so he could beat him again. Unfortunately he lived for things other than football and had a self destructive and addictive personality. He scored a goal against Tranmere on a March night in 1976 that remains the best I have ever seen.
He should have played for England. Instead his career imploded and was all over by the age of 25. By the time he was 38 he was dead from a drug induced heart attack.
This book is mainly a collection of match reports and doesn’t really get under the skin of the man but it’s a worthwhile read none the less.
He should have played for England. Instead his career imploded and was all over by the age of 25. By the time he was 38 he was dead from a drug induced heart attack.
This book is mainly a collection of match reports and doesn’t really get under the skin of the man but it’s a worthwhile read none the less.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 11, 2022
Encouraged by the title and some football fans' recommendations I was expecting another Gazza-like story with tons of humor, unveiled scandals and a deep dive into the mind of this allegedly brilliant footballer. Instead I got a bunch of local newspaper cutaways (half of them were basically the same - Friday had done miracles on the pitch but for some reason his team didn't win) and biased quotes from his mates & family saying what an independent individual Robin was. I am disappointed and I have a feeling that if a proper journalist took this story and decided to re-write it, this would be so much better what Guiggsy did.
January 4, 2021
Being a Reading fan, I was looking forward to reading this. Robin Friday was way before my time, but whenever you speak to older fans, he'll always be mentioned as the best player to pull on the hoops.
While this book contained some great anecdotes, I don't think the writers did Friday's legacy justice. It was mostly just match reports from the evening post with the odd anecdote thrown in.
They obviously did a lot of research, but with the information at hand, a decent writer could've made this so much more compelling.
While this book contained some great anecdotes, I don't think the writers did Friday's legacy justice. It was mostly just match reports from the evening post with the odd anecdote thrown in.
They obviously did a lot of research, but with the information at hand, a decent writer could've made this so much more compelling.
January 19, 2026
Well, he must have been an amazing player to watch but he’s less so to read about. I find it hard to feel sorry for the guy - some people are destined to crash and burn. Unlike others, I was completely ok with the format, I thought it was innovative given what limited amount of information was available to the authors. The only reason I award 3 rather than 4 stars is it turned out to be a long winded way of describing a gifted nutter.
October 15, 2017
A really fascinating book. I had never heard of Robin Friday until Hawksbee and Jacobs interviewed the authors a few years ago.
I really like the way it has been written via press cuttings and anecdotal quotes from former managers, players, friends and family. This build a picture of what the man was like and the impact he had.
I really like the way it has been written via press cuttings and anecdotal quotes from former managers, players, friends and family. This build a picture of what the man was like and the impact he had.
March 10, 2021
Disappointing biography. Came away not really learning a great deal about Robin Friday. Yes he was a bit of a loose cannon and could show some fantastic moments of supreme skill but it is mostly inspid soundbites from those that played with him and match reports from Reading and Cardiff newspapers. A flawed book for a flawed genius.
August 3, 2022
I was expecting to like this but I found it wasn't great. Not so much of a story, just a collection of press clippings and anecdotes, interspersed occasionally with what was in the charts or what was on the TV that evening in the 70s. Perhaps I might have been more into it if I'd been a follower of one of the clubs he played for. Thankfully it was rather short.
May 30, 2019
Struggling to work out if the bare bones format adopted by the authors was inspired (allowing the reader to read between the lines of dis/ingenuous testimony) or just plain lazy. Either way it rendered some of this quite dull, an irony given the subject matter.
August 8, 2020
Interesting insight into one of the game's true mavericks, lots of newspaper match reports throughout, can get bogged down in anecdotes reading this, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Recommended if you like this sort of thing.
October 16, 2020
Incredible player (yes I did see him play)! His story is the template for genius; a life equally cursed and blessed. I found the book fascinating and although well written, I just didn't like the ending. But who amongst those of us lucky enough to witness his talent on a football pitch did!?!
July 8, 2021
The Greatest Book Ever Copied and Pasted
Really disappointed by this book. The oral history parts are ok, but the “newspaper clippings” are just lazy and at times offer little to the overall story.
Really disappointed by this book. The oral history parts are ok, but the “newspaper clippings” are just lazy and at times offer little to the overall story.
April 9, 2026
It's not a book. It's a series of newspaper reports interspersed with interviews, what was on tele that day and snippets of the lives of George Best, Stan Bowles and Muhammad Ali.
There's a good book to be written on his life, but this is far from it.
There's a good book to be written on his life, but this is far from it.
September 12, 2024
wish i was as cool as robin, rip fella
November 21, 2024
Interesting tale of talent sadly wasted.
December 11, 2024
It’s just ok
March 29, 2026
Underwhelming.
April 18, 2025
Cobbling together some old match reports plus a few transcripts of interviews with people who knew the bloke doesn't make for much of a book.
October 12, 2007
I have never read a football biography that is laid out in a sort of diary format with everyone but the main person getting their say. I have never read any biography about such a character, a man who touched so many lives. A man born with a gift who wasted this god given talent on drink, drugs and women. I will say no more, except that this is a must read. If not for some of the stories then for the unique way in which it is laid out.
June 5, 2013
Fantastic book and well dug up from the local newspaper archives. Always great to read football stories at an age back when they didn't have any TV highlights in the third and fourth tiers in football, very well detailed. Off the pitch, he made George Best and Gazza look like lightweights, very wild lifestyle and signed off with a lovely calling card for one of Britain's most popular football pundits.
Can't wait to see this being made to film!!
Can't wait to see this being made to film!!
January 18, 2023
Footballers never used to be covered in tattoos. They were far more homogenous when I started watching the game in the seventies. Then came to Fratton Park a long haired maverick who looked more like a rock star than a 3rd division scuffler, and a pretty dissolute rocker at that. I remember him interacting with the crowd up and down the touchline as he tormented the poor Pompey full back. So I did see him, Gwigzee- although not enough
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews