Roy of the Rovers (comic) occasional "cross-overs" between strips in the weekly comic—for instance, in an early episode of "The Legend", lead character and superstar player Agostina Da Silva was shown playing against Melchester. Roy of the Rovers (comic) The Roy of the Rovers comic was launched as a weekly on 25 September 1976, named after the established comic strip of the same name that first appeared as weekly feature in the "Tiger" on 11 September 1954. The title ran for 853 issues, until 20 March 1993 (industrial action prevented publication of 3 issues in December 1978 and a further 5 in May and June
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