ROY OF THE ROVERS

 This is the original Roy Race, of Melchester Rovers in one of the club's characteristic strips. Roy appeared as a comic strip first in 1954, on September 11th. Then there  was a weekly comic devoted to just Roy and his story from 25th September 1976 until 1993 and he has appeared in various forms including a serialised strip in the Today newspaper. Various annuals are published too, along with various other incarnations in, monthly comics, publishing old stories. In 1993 strips in Shoot magazine told stories about another footballer, "Ray" and in July 1997 he is resurrected in the "Match of the Day" magazine through to 2001.

There was a "collection" edition published as "Best of Roy" editions in the 1970s and 1980s through to April 2009.

In 2016 Roy's rights were sold to "Rebellion Development" who rebooted Roy in hard cover novels, as Roy joins up with his old chum, Blackie Gray, who was transferred from Islington FC, a Premier club.

Roy used VAR way back when he was playing for the Rovers against Eastgate. He used stadium screens to re-run a goal scored by Eastgate, By chance the screen failed so the crowd and referee etc couldn't make their mind up. The goal stood.
When Rovers scored, the screen showed offside! Tough stuff.

Roy was also a champion of fair play as we all know, so there were no arguments.

Roy lost his left foot in a helicopter accident, but continue to perform, he has been through various hairstyles and fashion changes, met Alf Ramsey as manager of Rovers, been sponsored by Gola, his son Rocky joined in in 1993, Ron Atkinson has posed with Roy life sized cut outs, Emlyn Hughes has played for the Rovers and others have been introduced to the comic strip including Bob Wilson, Bobby Robson, Malcolm MacDonald and we all know that Tubby Morton regularly witnessed the "Race Rocket" in the various comic strips.
Roy has made a single with Gary Lineker-not a best seller.

Include a terrorist attack in "Basran", club bankruptcy, Rovers in the second division, Roy as a manager in AC Monza in Italy, a car crash when his wife was killed and so on, an exhibition of Roy's life is being shown in the National Football Museum, Manchester.