Roy of the Rovers Hughes were brought out of retirement to play for Melchester in 1985, along with longtime fans of the strip Martin Kemp and Steve Norman, of the pop group Spandau Ballet. Geoff Boycott served for several years as Melchester's chairman, and Sir Alf Ramsey had briefly taken over as manager of Melchester in 1982, while Roy lay in his coma. Players such as Malcolm Macdonald and Trevor Francis would sometimes line up alongside Roy in England matches, despite the fact that the clubs they played for in real life were never featured in the strip. The concept of TV pundits and
Roy of the Rovers Jr. (later known as Rocky), Melinda, and Diana. Penny left Roy in the early 1980s, in a high-profile storyline that was covered on national television news. The following year Roy was shot in his office by a mystery gunman, in an incident clearly mirroring the shooting of J. R. Ewing in the hit television series "Dallas" the previous year. Roy lay in a coma for several weeks. The culprit was eventually revealed to be Elton Blake, an actor who had been cast as Roy in a television series about the Rovers, but who blamed him for his dismissal. In early