Roy of the Rovers Roy of the Rovers Roy of the Rovers is a British comic strip about the life and times of a fictional footballer named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers. The strip first appeared in the "Tiger" in 1954, before giving its name to a weekly (and later monthly) comic magazine, published by IPC and Fleetway from 1976 until 1995, in which it was the main feature. The weekly strip ran until 1993, following Roy's playing career until its conclusion after he lost his left foot in a helicopter crash. When the monthly comic was launched later that year the
Roy of the Rovers edition in "Shoot" magazine, which had in the late 1980s published a parody called Ray of the Rangers. The comic strip was resurrected in July 1997, printed as short (usually two-page) features in the BBC's monthly "Match of the Day" magazine. These strips ran until the magazine's demise in May 2001. By then the strip's wholesome tone, often espousing the virtues of fair play and strong moral character, was beginning to seem old-fashioned. The editor of "Roy of the Rovers" comic, Barrie Tomlinson, has commented that "everyone seemed to be growing up a bit more quickly, and they wanted stories