In 2018, following the acquisition of the strip's rights by comic book publisher Rebellion, a brand new rebooted Roy of the Rovers story, following the adventures of a 16-year-old Roy in the present day, began publication as a series of original graphic novels and prose novels. Roy of the Rovers comic magazine was launched as a weekly on 25September 1976, named after the established comic strip of the same name that first appeared as weekly feature in the Tiger on 11September 1954. The title ran for 853issues, until 20March 1993 [nb 1] ( industrial action prevented publication of 3 issues in December 1978 and a further 5 in May and June 1980), and included other football strips and features. In February 1989, the magazine merged with the similarly themed Hot Shot, and was known for a brief time as Roy of the Rovers and Hot Shot, but reverted to its original title shortly afterwards. A Roy of the Rovers computer game was released, on the Commodore 64, [70] Amstrad CPC [71] and ZX Spectrum [72] in 1988. It was split into two parts: the first an adventure game, in which– taking the role of Roy Race– the player had to find and rescue the kidnapped Melchester team, before then playing the second part, which consisted of a charity match to raise funds for the club. The fewer players recovered before the match began, then the smaller the team who could take part. In the extreme, Roy would be the only player for Melchester. The game received mixed reactions; the Spectrum version received 7/10 from Your Sinclair, but only 3/10 from Sinclair User. [73] By 1993, sales had fallen but Roy's story continued, first on a monthly basis and finally as part of the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine, which ended and took him with it in 2001. Dawkes, Phil (21 January 2021). "Roy of the Rovers: How has Melchester striker stayed relevant 67 years on?". BBC . Retrieved 25 March 2022.

A fresh season brings fresh hope with dedicated new owners, intent on rebuilding Mel Park and restoring Melchester Rovers as one of the biggest clubs in Europe, in both the men’s and the women’s game! Originally these were two different humorous strips, both written by Fred Baker and drawn by Julio Schiaffino. [5] a b Wilson, Chris (23 March 2009), "Roy of the Rovers profile: All You Need to Know About the Classic Football Comic", Daily Mirror , retrieved 10 June 2010TOFFS produced a range of replica Meclchester Rovers shirts in recent years, but these are no longer available. This article was in part first published in episodic form on the Boys’ Adventure Blog and content from those articles by Richard Sheaf is reproduced here with permission 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. Yet while Race was a constant protagonist from 1954 to 1993, the cast of illustrators and writers changed significantly. Joe Colquhoun was the original artist but was followed by Paul Trevillion, Yvonne Hutton, David Sque and Michael White. Derek Birnage, an early editor of Tiger, played a key writing role before Tom Tully.

Roy of the Rovers first appeared in Tiger magazine on 11 September 1954 and during its heyday had a circulation of about 400,000. After 22 years of success it moved from Tiger in 1976 and became its own weekly publication until 1993, when sales had declined to 20,000, although the story did run on a monthly basis until 2001 in various forms. Especially during the 1980s, real-life personalities often made appearances. 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. [54] Geoff Boycott served for several years as Melchester's chairman, [11] and Sir Alf Ramsey had briefly taken over as manager of Melchester in 1982, while Roy lay in his coma. [2] Players such as Malcolm Macdonald and Trevor Francis would sometimes line up alongside Roy in England matches, despite the fact that the clubs they played for in real life were never featured in the strip. [55] The strip ran until May 1990, returned in July of the same year, and finally came to an end in January 1993, with reprints appearing in the remaining issues of the weekly Roy of the Rovers comic. Artist Joe Colquhoun had previously drawn strips for the struggling Champion before taking on ‘Roy’. When Pepper dropped out after four instalments due to the demands of an unwieldy workload, Colquhoun assumed the writing duties, assisted by Tiger‘s editorial staff on the technical aspects of the game, admitting that he knew “damn all about soccer”. He continued to write and draw the strip, which appeared for many years under the by-line ‘Stewart Colwyn’, until February 1959, returning for a second stint as artist only from 1965-67. In mid 2012, Egmont launched its digital Classic Comics imprint with four iBooks collecting some classic Roy of the Rovers stories. A fifth volume followed in November 2012, which we reported here. None of these iBooks are currently available.

Published in 2014 by Century this is “the greatest story ever told by the world’s most beloved sportsman, Roy of the Rovers, in his own words for the first time.” Just finished @royoftherovers book 1 by @tompalmerauthor A wonderful book about pursuing your dreams whatever your circumstances. I love how Tom covers football alongside real life issues that some of our children face today. #welldone” @emmasuffield School Librarian of the Year 2018 Find sources: "Roy of the Rovers"comic– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( December 2011) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)