Lenin of the Rovers Melchester, the fictional home of Roy of the Rovers. In one episode, "The Fifth Man", the Cambridge Five spy scandal is mocked when Felchester plays Cambridge in the FA Cup and wins as a result of Cambridge players, including a mysterious fifth man, scoring own goals against their own team. Lenin of the Rovers ran for two series, each comprising four shows. The original scheduled broadcast dates of the final two episodes of series 2 were postponed due to coinciding with the Hillsborough disaster. The whole of series 2 was released by the BBC as a double-cassette set in 1992.
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