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) Over the years, there were also occasional non-football strips, such as "Racey's Rocket" (1984–85), which was about stock-car racing, and "Johnny Cougar", the story of the "redskin wrestler" which had previously run in "Tiger", but these strips never seemed to fit into the football-themed comic and were invariably quickly dropped. Another spin-off was "The Son of Racey" (1989–90), which gave schoolboy Roy Race Jr his first prominent role in the comic just before he joined Rovers as an apprentice. In addition to the players mentioned above who migrated from their own strips to the main "RotR" strip, there were also