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) 88 per cent were male. Of the overall readership, the majority (57 per cent) were aged 11–14. Readers dropped out as they got older; only 10 per cent were aged 17–19, and none were older than 19. The weekly comic generally featured a handful of different strips, of between one and four pages in length, in addition to a letters page, hints and tips about playing football, and features on real-life players, teams and events. "Roy of the Rovers" was usually the lead feature, although once the cover of the magazine stopped featuring actual strips (instead using photographs of footballers,