the Acton British Legion Reserves, aged 14, and in some matches would play alongside their father. Tony played in midfield, and Robin up front, but according to Tony his brother was better as a goalkeeper than a forward: "He was a brilliant goalkeeper. He had no fear ... But he obviously preferred banging them in at the other end". Around this time Robin became interested in music, dancing and attending concerts; he also had a talent for drawing, but suddenly abandoned this interest at 15. Robin became more outgoing than his brother and started taking drugs in his mid-teens. He left school at 15, a year before Tony, and began training as a plasterer. Borstal, first marriage and the Isthmian League Friday lasted two months as a plasterer before moving on to become first a van driver for a grocery firm, then a window cleaner. His laid-back attitude and indifference was already clear: in his father's words, "he didn't care". Friday regularly stole by this time, but despite numerous convictions, did not go to a detention centre until he was 16. Having been caught stealing what Tony recalled to be "a car radio or something", he was released almost immediately because he suffered from asthma. However, after he re-offended three months later he was sent to Feltham Borstal where he served 14 months. During his time there, Friday became stronger and fitter and also starred for the Borstal football team. He was selected for the prison league's all-star men's team, still aged 16, and allowed out of Borstal to train and play with Reading's youth team, for which he appeared three times in the South East Counties League during the 1968–69 season. After his release, Friday returned to Acton, where he had a girlfriend called Maxine Doughan and a baby daughter called Nicola. Maxine was of mixed race. 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. Despite this, and the opposition by both sets of parents—Alf refused to even attend the wedding—they married, both aged 17. Friday did not take his marital commitments seriously and continued to womanise, drink heavily and take narcotics. A friend who played for Walthamstow Avenue, a semi-professional Isthmian League club from north-east London, took Friday along to training