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Robin Friday was the ultimate cult hero whose talents went under the radar(Image: Reading Post)

Robin Friday's final notable act on a football pitch was to kick Mark Lawrenson squarely in the face.

The story goes that after being sent off, the then-Cardiff City forward broke into Brighton's changing room and defecated in the centre-back's kit bag before exiting the stadium while the match was still underway.

His professional football career spanned just four years, yet he's still considered Reading's greatest ever player and Cardiff's all-time cult hero.

Friday and his twin brother Tony were born and raised in a working-class family in Acton, west London, during the 1950s and 1960s.

In his teenage years, around the time he began experimenting with drugs, he played for the youth teams of Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea.

Hurley told him: "You must never ever desecrate a graveyard."

Reading manager Charlie Hurley brought Friday into the club in 1973 as an amateur(Image: Reading Post)

On another occasion, he walked into a hotel bar with a live swan under his arm that he had found outside.

Towards the end of the 1974-75 season, he celebrated a last-minute winner against Rochdale by kissing a policeman behind the goal.

When asked why, he replied: "He looked so cold and fed up standing there that I decided to cheer him up a bit."

With 20 goals for the season, Friday was named the club's player of the year.

In the following campaign, he improved even further, endearing himself to fans by doing a full lap of the pitch every time he scored.

After repeated clashes with goalkeeper Milija Aleksic, Friday celebrated scoring by walking past Aleksic and making a V-sign gesture, much to the delight of the fans.

This act of defiance inspired the Welsh indie band Super Furry Animals to dedicate their 1996 single The Man Don't Give A F*** to Friday, featuring the image of his obscene gesture on the cover.

Sadly, he was found dead in his flat in 1990(Image: Reading Post)

Despite this, Friday's time at Cardiff was marked by more lows than highs, as he increasingly isolated himself.

I am a winner."

Post-retirement life saw Friday marry for the third time and serve time for impersonating a police officer to seize drugs.

Then on December 22, 1990, he was found dead in his flat aged 38.

Though he suffered a heart attack, Paolo Hewitt and former Oasis bassist Paul McGuigan, who both wrote the 1997 biography The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw, claimed in the book Friday died of "a suspected heroin overdose".

Ten years ago, a film about his life was said to be in the pipeline with The Hunger Games star Sam Claflin rumoured to be playing Friday.
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