Roy of the Rovers accident had resulted in the amputation of his famous left foot, ending his playing career and resulting in his move to Italy as the manager of Serie A side AC Monza (a fictional top-level Italian club, rather than the real club of the same name). Reconciling the continuity of the monthly strip with the stories that preceded and followed it presented difficulties, forcing the story's writers to alter its history in a number of ways, a technique known as retroactive continuity. Significantly, the strip rewrote various parts of Melchester's history, and shortened Roy Sr.'s recorded playing career to a more
Roy of the Rovers (comic) of the Rovers and Hot Shot", but reverted to its original title shortly afterwards. The comic was relaunched as a monthly in September 1993, but finally closed in March 1995, after a further 19 issues. On 19 March 2012 The Royal Mail launched a special stamp collection to celebrate Britain's rich comic book history. As well as "Roy of the Rovers", the collection also featured "The Beano", "The Dandy", "Eagle", "The Topper", "Bunty", "Buster", "Valiant", "Twinkle" and "2000 AD". The magazine's circulation for the six months ending June 1981 was 122,118. A readership survey carried out in 1982 revealed that