However, his habit of unsettling opponents through physical intimidation contributed to a heavily tarnished disciplinary record, and his personal life was one of heavy smoking, drinking, womanising and drug abuse.

As his drug habit intensified, Friday's form began to dip in the first half of the 1976–77 season, leading Reading to sell him to Second Division side Cardiff City around the New Year.

[15] Around the age of ten, Friday possessed notable ball-skills, and according to his father could flick an orange up onto his neck, balance it and then let it roll it back down his body and catch it on his foot.

Despite their many similarities and common interest in sports and football in particular, the twins were wildly different in academic terms: while Tony did well at school, Friday was uninterested and according to his brother "was always bunking off, having birds around the park".

[16] Friday was scouted by numerous London sides during his teenage years, joining Crystal Palace's school of excellence at 12 or 13, then moving on to Queens Park Rangers aged 13 and then to Chelsea, with whom he attended the 1967 FA Cup Final; as one of the club's youth players, he was part of the team's official party.

The local controversy surrounding the interracial relationship caused the couple and their circle of friends to be socially isolated, and led to a physical attack on the group one night in an Acton public house.

[38] Although Churchill's, described by Lewington as "the worst club that has ever been in Reading", tolerated such behaviour,[38] the town's fashionable Sindlesham Mill nightclub did not, regularly barring Friday for his bizarre activities, including a dance he invented called "the elephant" which consisted of turning the pockets of his jeans inside out and undoing his flies to expose himself.

[40] Hurley attempted to calm Friday down by moving him into an apartment above the football club's elderly ex-groundsman, but to no avail: "Even if it was three in the morning, the first thing would be to get the music playing", Simmonds later said.

[45] After Reading despatched Newport County 3–0 on 14 September 1974, Friday and his forward partner Dick Habbin had scored six goals each and topped the Football League goalscoring charts.

[48] During an FA Cup tie away against Swindon Town on 23 November, Friday began to have trouble breathing and despite leaving the game for five minutes to recuperate with an inhaler was eventually forced to come off for good, coughing violently.

"He is the most vital cog in the team, and last week I understand Reading turned down a £60,000 bid from Cardiff City involving Welsh international Derek Showers".

[65] After Reading went four games without a win starting on 24 January 1976, a late goal from Friday ended this run on 25 February, in a home match against Hartlepool United; twelve minutes from time, he collected a pass from Stewart Henderson and neatly placed the ball past the goalkeeper from the edge of the penalty area.

A vital fixture on 31 March 1976 pitted fourth-placed Reading at home against Tranmere Rovers, who occupied third spot;[67] internationally experienced referee Clive Thomas took charge of the game.

[11][58][68][69] With the score 2–0 to Reading, the goalkeeper Steve Death threw the ball to the right back Gary Peters, who spotted Friday standing near the left-hand corner of the opposing penalty area.

[75] The row over the new contracts continued throughout the off-season, while Friday planned his second wedding; he had been formally divorced from Maxine after years of separation, and subsequently engaged to Liza Deimel, a Reading-born university graduate.

[77] The wedding was filmed by Southern Television, before whose cameras Friday, wearing an open-necked tiger-skin-pattern shirt, brown velvet suit and snakeskin boots, sat on the steps of the church and rolled a joint.

Friday had invited about two hundred people, mostly friends and relatives from London, who joined in the drinking and drug-taking and ending up fighting each other and stealing the couple's wedding presents, one of which was a large quantity of cannabis.

"Jimmy, you've only had him four days", he warned, sombrely: "Give it a few months"...[91] Friday's form declined after his strong debut and his personal life remained troubled and chaotic, leading him to vanish regularly and miss Cardiff matches.

[1][92][93][94] Leslie Hamilton, the Cardiff club doctor, later said that he had believed at the time that Andrews was being far too soft on Friday; indeed, according to teammate Paul Went, the forward would simply leave after each match and not be heard of until he returned for the next game.

[95] Unhappy living so far from home, Friday began to travel back to London at weekends; he avoided paying rail fares by knocking on locked toilet doors and shouting, "Tickets, please!

[42][104] Friday's actions became even stranger during his time at Cardiff; after they lost the second leg of the Welsh Cup final 3–0 to Shrewsbury Town on 18 May 1977,[n 4] the players and staff were awoken in the middle of the night by loud bangs coming from below their rooms.

[92] After failing to turn up for pre-season training with Cardiff before the 1977–78 season,[92] Friday was reported to be in a London hospital suffering from an unknown virus which had caused him to lose 2 stone (13 kg; 28 lb) in weight.

[12] After receiving a red card, Friday left the ground with the game still going on; according to legend, before leaving he broke into the Brighton dressing room and defecated in Lawrenson's kit bag.

[110][111] He served a prison sentence during the 1980s for impersonating a police officer and confiscating people's drugs,[112] and was found dead in his Acton flat on 22 December 1990 at the age of 38, having suffered a fatal heart attack.

BBC Radio Berkshire Sports Editor Tim Dellor, speaking in 2010, emphasised the importance of Friday's charisma to his contemporary and retrospective appeal, a point which was also highlighted by his second wife, Liza (and have one daughter together), who likened his personal charm to that of "a pied piper".

[9] Friday's style of play was based around his exceptional ball skills, described by Cardiff doctor Leslie Hamilton as "absolutely fabulous",[122] and his instinctive footballing vision, which enabled him both to execute flamboyant individual moves and to create attacks for his teammates.

Jimmy Andrews, his manager at Cardiff, later called Friday "the complete centre-forward" and placed him on a par with Alan Shearer,[13] while Maurice Evans claimed that he could have played for England,[123] and was at least on a level with international strikers he had worked with such as John Aldridge and Dean Saunders.

[125] The strong physical aspect of his game and exceptionally competitive, combative spirit combined with all of this to create a formidable forward player: such was his ability that his arrival transformed Reading into one of the division's best sides in a matter of weeks.

[122] He boasted an exceptional work-rate, which Dwyer recalled gave any side including him a strong boost: "When he was in the line-up you'd have a centre-forward and a centre-half; not only would he be up there running them ragged, but when it broke down he'd be the first person to start tackling back".

[131] Although he was often criticised for the number of bookings and sendings-off he received, Friday believed he was justified to chase victory by any means, explaining his attitude in a 1977 interview: "On the pitch I hate all opponents.