Melchester Rovers promotion to the top flight in the 1940s. And they finished runners-up in 1949, losing the title to North Ham just in the last game of the season. In 1954, however, the first "Roy of the Rovers" strip appeared, telling the story of the club and its star striker Roy Race (whose grandfather, Billy Race, had played for the club in the early part of the 20th century). Melchester finally became League Champions in 1958, and won the FA Cup the following season, by which time Race was captain. It was in the 1960s, however, that Rovers became a footballing
Roy of the Rovers (comic) to Nipper, created by the same writer (Tom Tully) and artist (Solano Lopez) and featuring the same club, Blackport Rovers. Buster Madden had been a top-class player for the club, but was killed in a car crash, and reappeared as a ghost to aid his former team-mates on the pitch in a variety of bizarre ways. His cousin Nigel Foster, also a Blackport player, was the only person who could see him (a similar story called "The Footballer Who Wouldn't Stay Dead" had run a decade earlier). United (1992), meanwhile, was one of a handful of strips that only enjoyed