Rovers Return Inn Billy first appears in Coronation Street in January 1961, but takes over The Rovers Return in 1984 after his mother Annie retires and signs the pub over to him. It doesn't last long, though, and he leaves for good in 1984, after a series of run-ins with police due to the lock-ins held after hours. Arguably the most famous barmaid on "Coronation Street", Bet Lynch was in charge of The Rovers Return for a little over 10 years. In late 1984, the brewery, Newton & Ridley, unhappy with the way the pub was being run into the ground by Billy,
Rovers Return Inn which hung in The Rovers for 22 years. The change of decor in February 2008 was a storyline in the show, in which Liz McDonald's (Beverley Callard) husband Vernon Tomlin (Ian Reddington) hired friends to redecorate. The new look of The Rovers in October 2008 was not explained in the story. A few weeks later, Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) commented to Jed Stone (Kenneth Cope) that the local pub had "recently" been redecorated. The fictional timeline proceeds as follows: Jack (Arthur Leslie) and Annie Walker (Doris Speed) bought the tenancy and moved into The Rovers Return on 4 February 1937.