'Roy of the Rovers' Annual

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In 2016, the rights to Roy of the Rovers and the rest of the Fleetway comics library were acquired by Rebellion Developments, [17] [18] who subsequently rebooted the series to follow the modern-day adventures of Roy as a teenager. Like its predecessor volume the Football Quizbook 1979 – 1980 has some reprint art in it and (unsurprisingly) lots of questions about football, as well as a foreword by Trevor Francis.

There he met the fat, bald, camp but extremely successful Hungarian manager Viktor Boskovic, with the strip taking on an increasingly humorous tone in the process. The monthly stated that the Roy whose career ended in 1993 had been born in 1954 (the year the strip first appeared), and had debuted, aged 16, in the Rovers' European Cup Final win of 1970 (which had actually taken place in 1969, not 1970, in the strip).

Europe United”– a hot rocking heavy metal rap taking a stand against hooliganism – featured Gary Lineker and Roy on vocals and Roy on lead guitar. In the first episode, a teenaged Roy and his best friend, Blackie Gray, signed for the Rovers after being spotted playing for a youth club team. Former Division One stars Bob Wilson and Emlyn Hughes were brought out of retirement to play for Melchester in 1985, along with longtime fans of the strip Martin Kemp and Steve Norman, of the pop group Spandau Ballet. During the domestic season, the series concentrated on the team’s campaign, usually in pursuit of a trophy, but there were bad times too – relegation in 1981 and cup humiliations at the hands of Fourth Division sides and Norwegian part-timers.For instance, during the first ten years of his playing career Roy was kidnapped at least five times. When the monthly comic was launched later that year the focus switched to Roy's son Rocky, who also played for Melchester. Roy of the Rovers the weekly comic, edited by Barrie Tomlinson, was launched in September 1976, with Tully writing and Sque drawing the lead strip. The Pink Floyd Super All-Action Official Music Programme for Boys and Girls, the Pink Floyd 1974 tour programme, contained a quartet of comic strips, each based on one of the band members. Both The Safest Hands in Soccer and Goalkeeper suffered occasional scheduling issues due to the health of artist Torta, occasionally having to skip instalments or, in one instance, be substituted with a text-only story.

Derek Birnage, who was editor of Tiger in 1954, when the career of Roy Race, of Melchester Rovers began, died at his home in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, in 2004, suffering from Parkinson’s disease. If they went ahead, they didn't try to extend their lead, like proper footballers, but defended, like blackguards and cowards. He married club secretary Penny Laine at the end of the 1975–76 season, [26] [27] with whom he had three children: Roy Jr. The strip followed the structure of the football season, thus there were several months each year when the Rovers were not playing football, but the strip needed to depict something more exciting than the players going on holiday and then reporting for pre-season training.

In February 1964, however, the series lost its permanent spot on the cover of Tiger, alternating thereafter with other features.

As the average reader probably stayed with the comic for only three or four years, many storylines were recycled. Artists Yvonne Hutton and David Sque updated Roy’s image for the seventies whilst Mike White and Barrie Mitchell provided a muscular look for the 1980s and 90s.Roy of the Rovers – The Bumper Book of Roy of the Rovers came packed with sort of features that made the Roy of the Rovers Annual top of many a boy’s Christmas list. Replica Melchester Rovers shirts have been available at various stages of the series' life, up to and including a strip designed and produced by Hummel for the 2018 reboot.