Roy of the Rovers the Rovers go on tour to a fictional country in an exotic part of the world, normally South America, where they would invariably be kidnapped and held to ransom. "Melchester played more pre-season games at gunpoint deep in the jungle than they ever did in more mundane settings." The summer would often also see Roy fending off lucrative offers to leave Melchester, as in 1978, when the Sheik of Basran, an oil-rich Middle-Eastern state, offered him £1 million to coach the national team. Especially during the 1980s, real-life personalities often made appearances. Former Division One stars Bob Wilson and Emlyn
Roy of the Rovers (comic) Over the years, there were also occasional non-football strips, such as "Racey's Rocket" (1984–85), which was about stock-car racing, and "Johnny Cougar", the story of the "redskin wrestler" which had previously run in "Tiger", but these strips never seemed to fit into the football-themed comic and were invariably quickly dropped. Another spin-off was "The Son of Racey" (1989–90), which gave schoolboy Roy Race Jr his first prominent role in the comic just before he joined Rovers as an apprentice. In addition to the players mentioned above who migrated from their own strips to the main "RotR" strip, there were also