Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
I read the article and learned a few things;-
1. If you were at the reserve match between City and West Ham sometime in October 1977, you'll know that it was 99% certain Friday had been inside because he played that game with one of the most obvious prison haircuts I've seen. I didn't know what he'd been to jail for though.
2. I'd assumed Friday had been in prison for the early part of the 77/78 season, but he was only sent down in late September, so he should have been with us for pre season training and the early games of that campaign - it sounds like things really went downhill for him in the summer of 77 though.
3.. It was news to me that the 6-3 loss at Bolton wasn't Friday's last appearance for City, he played in another reserve match after that.
I've not read either of the books, but I think the writer is probably right to have made the first one about his time at Reading and the second one about what happened after that, because i strongly believe that we're talking about two different players really.
Certainly, the player I saw in a Newport v Reading match, early in 73/74 I think it was, was a First Division footballer in the making - he was miles above every other player on the pitch that night in terms of technique and flair. If the roles had been reversed and we'd got the early part of Friday's career and Reading the final year of it, I'm sure he'd be remembered at Cardiff as the article tries to make out he is. Based on that ninety minutes at Newport, I can fully understand why Reading fans made him their player of the century and the club's biggest cult hero.
However, the question I'd love to see answered, but never will, is how many of those City fans who made Friday the club's biggest ever cult hero in that BBC poll were old enough to have seen him play for us? The distinct impression I get from supporters who saw him in a City shirt is that their views on him are pretty similar to mine.
Friday provided a few great fleeting images (him getting Bobby Moore to lose his rag in his very impressive debut, the v sign against Luton and how he inspired he came on as a sub to inspire a comeback from 2-0 down to draw with Wolves, who were Second Division Champions that year, are three which spring to mind).
That's it though really, for most of his time here, he was, if anything, a liability because he had no team ethic and you never knew when he'd lose it and get involved in some pointless feud. There's another player, also sadly no longer with us, who is City's real cult hero - Whitts was a hundred times the player for Cardiff City that Robin Friday was.