Roy of the Rovers "Best of Roy of the Rovers" books, featuring successive runs of strips from the 1980s and 1970s, were published in June 2008 and 2009 respectively. As of August 2016, Roy of the Rovers and the rest of the Fleetway comics library is owned by Rebellion Developments. The story followed Roy Race, a striker for the fictional football team Melchester Rovers, based in a town of the same name in an unspecified part of England, where Roy lived with his family. In the first episode, a teenaged Roy and his best friend, Blackie Gray, signed for the Rovers after being spotted
Roy of the Rovers (comic) a short life due to being introduced in the dying years of the original weekly comic, and was unique among "Roy Of The Rovers" strips in that its fictional protagonists (a struggling Premier League side) were actually shown playing against real-life teams and players. Cheat (1992–93) saw Nick Leach continually cheat his way to the top, only to ultimately see his well-deserved comeuppance, while Future Ball (1992–93) gave an insight into how football may be in the future, played across the planets. The final new story to begin was Dream Keeper, which ran for just a few weeks in 1993.