Roy of the Rovers (comic) Argentine international of the same name. The 1980s saw a slew of popular strips run in the comic, including The Apprentices (1983–84), a short-lived strip detailing the exploits of Melchester's apprentice professionals (effectively acting as the Melchester Rovers story in the comic as Roy was managing Walford for much of its run)—and Harker's War (1985), a strip that took an unconventional angle by showing a former policeman's one-man war on football hooliganism. The mid-1980s also saw reprints of Nipper, a popular strip originally appearing in "Score 'n' Roar" and "Scorcher and Score", that featured Nipper Lawrence, a plucky working class
Roy of the Rovers (comic) drawn by Julio Schiaffino. Mighty Mouse, a "Roy of the Rovers" strip, featured Kevin "Mighty" Mouse, a successful, skilful Division One player despite being a morbidly obese, short, bespectacled medical student. Hot Shot Hamish, meanwhile, followed gentle Hebridean giant Hamish Balfour, the man with the most powerful shot in the world, and began its days in "Scorcher and SCORE", before various mergers saw it end up in "Tiger" and finally "RotR". Once the two strips were appearing in the same comic, they were eventually merged to form Hot Shot Hamish and Mighty Mouse (later shortened to simply Hamish and Mouse),