Roy of the Rovers on new signings who were unable to settle easily in the Melchester team, either because they refused to change their style of play and expected the Rovers to play around them, such as the uncomprisingly tough defender Duncan McKay, or had personal characteristics that made it difficult for the other players to accept them, such as ex-circus ball juggler Sammy Spangler. As the average reader probably stayed with the comic for only three or four years, many storylines were recycled. For instance, during the first ten years of his playing career Roy was kidnapped at least five times. When playing
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