This was written for my site Some Green and a Ball.
It’s time to talk about one of the most successful footballers in the history of the game. A man who has won nine League titles, eight FA Cups, three League Cups, three European Cups, a UEFA Cup and four Cup Winners’ Cups over an impressive 39 year playing career. What’s more he achieved of this with the same team. Oh, he’s also been shot, kidnapped, involved in an earthquake and bomb attack on his team bus and lost his foot to a freak helicopter accident.
It’s time to talk about Roy Race.
The Cliff Richard of football.
Racey made his debut in September 1954 in a youth club fixture alongside his lifelong friend Blackie Gray before being spotted by a scout. It would be eight months before he ascended the ranks of his hometown club and finally appear in the sainted red and yellow stripes of Melchester Rovers. Before too long, the trophies and medals fell into his lap with astonishing regularity.
Well, okay, this is all tongue in cheek, but Roy Race was a staple in any young football fan’s life. He was the very watchword for professionalism, a strong sense of morality, club loyalty and knowing how to escape earthquakes.
The only key transfer came in 1976 when Racey finally left the pages of Tiger, which had been home for the strip for 22 years, and was awarded a comic just for himself in 1976. Roy of the Rovers ran for over 800 issues until 1993 and became so popular that its stories would from time to time make the national news.
The most memorable thing about Roy and his Melchester colleagues is that he never aged and always looked like he could pull on the number nine jersey well into the 1980s when he must have been approaching fifty. He became Player –Manager in the mid-70s, but that was the closest the serial came to acknowledging the passing of time. Like Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie after him, he was a fixed point in a changing age.
My first brush with him came around 1981 when the blonde-haired Adonis with the rocket-like left foot was shot by an unknown assailant in his office late at night. In classic comic tradition the drama was eked out over the following weeks while Melchester’s player-manager fought for his life. The Rovers could not undertake the tricky festive fixture list without their talisman in the dugout so the board had to move quickly. Sir Alf Ramsey wasn’t doing much at the time so gamely stepped into the breach.
Finally, Elton Blake—an actor who had lost a lucrative TV deal when Melchester pulled the plug on a programme about the team—was found to be the guilty party. When Racey finally emerged from his coma the news was announced over the Tannoy mid-game during a home game. Such was the euphoria in the ground that the Melchester side racked up a ten goal haul in celebration.
Even as young teenagers my mates and I knew it was all nonsense and loved it all the more for it. That’s not to say that it could not be a bit cringeworthy at times. I still blush when I think of Roy and his wife Penny naming their newly born daughter ‘Diana’ after the Princess of Wales. Similarly, in the serial Tommy’s Troubles, Tommy and Ginger giving three cheers to the unhappy couple at the Royal Wedding of 1981). That sort of thing was a bit out of sorts where I was from, but it was still a thrill to hold the latest edition of the comic. Racey might have been jumping the shark every couple of months, but as Steve Bruce demonstrated in his trilogy of football-based novels, sometimes footie fiction needs more than trophy after trophy.
And Roy Race faced more issues than most.
Melchester were often be kidnapped by swarthy terrorists when on European duty. On one occasion they were held for weeks by Arabs and six members of the first team were killed in an explosion. Weeks later they were back home and regularly winning thanks to late ‘Racey Rockets.’
That tale with its stereotypical view on the Middle East was roundly criticised. Maybe that’s why it was never mentioned again in the serial.
The drama didn’t end there. At one point Melchester was hit by an earthquake, causing subsidence under the ground. The FA allowed them to play at Wembley for a year until repairs were complete. Eerily prescient.
Of course Roy wasn’t the only character in the serial and on occasion others would lead the stories. He married Penny, Melchester’s secretary and had three children. They were love’s young dream until she left him near the end of the strip’s run. His teammates included the ever-loyal Blackie Gray—often used as a device for showing that Roy was wrong about some problem or other. If the two fell out it meant things really were up the tubes. Then there was the keeper, Charlie ‘the Cat’ Carter, who kept Rovers in tight games and Duncan McKay—the obligatory hot-headed tough-tackling Scot with discipline issues. Meanwhile Vic Guthrie was a hell of a talent, but was initially unpopular with his teammates as he played only for himself until Racey convinced him as to the benefits of teamwork. It makes the dream work, you know.
Occasionally, Roy would express his thoughts on the modern game particularly on how England were doing or his worries about hooliganism. That last one even made the front page.
14p!
Rovers often suffered injury crises, but were able to call upon some of Roy’s mates. In 1986, they pulled off a huge coup by securing the signatures of not only Emlyn Hughes and Bob Wilson but also Martin Kemp and Steve Norman from Spandau Ballet, though the inclusion of Ballet’s rhythm section was a step too far for many fans and interest waned.
The comic came to an end when, on his way to scout a promising youth player, Roy lost control of his helicopter and was still on-board when it crashed. Again the drama was spread over the coming weeks until news arrived that he’d cheated death once more. This time though, he had to have his famous left foot amputated. He subsequently moved to Italy and took over at AC Monza. The comic ended in 1995.
It reappeared as a serial in the short-lived Match of the Day magazine. Here Roy was back at Rovers and living vicariously through his son Rocky. Their relationship was troubled though particularly when Race Jr. left to join arch rivals (though their existence had never mentioned before) Melborough. They argued bitterly when Penny Race was killed in a car crash. Rocky blamed his father who cited amnesia. It took a while before they were reconciled.
Roy finally became the owner of Melchester Rovers, having rescued the club from the clutches of the previous owners – the borderline criminal Vintner brothers. As the magazine closed down the Race family and Melchester Rovers were facing a rosy future and a Champions League campaign.
Of course, life at Melchester Rovers wasn’t the sole story on offer. The heyday of the comic saw other popular serials living outside that universe. My favourites were Tommy’s Troubles, The Hard Man and Mighty Mouse.
Tommy’s ‘Troubles’ took the form of being a football man kid at Crowborough—a ‘rugger’ school. Tommy Barnes and his pal Ginger Collins—his own Blackie Gray—were not allowed to play football so set up their own team called, with no hint of ego, Barnes United. They renovated a clubhouse at a disused pitch and entered a local league. This despite the close attention of the rugby-loving bullies Waller and Swate who did all they could to disrupt the team’s progress.
The Hard Man was Johnny Dexter, a likeable centre back with a fiery temper. He played for Danefield United, but was transferred to Real Granpala of Spain where he met the tubby eccentric Hungarian manager Viktor Boskovic. When Johnny returned to Danefield, Boskovic went with him.
This serial was drawn around the time when Eastern European sides were almost always called ‘crack outfits’ with mysterious owners and managers. Therefore Boskovic was a playful attempt to poke fun at them. The serial was so popular that Dexter made the cover of the 1981 annual instead of Roy Race.
Mighty Mouse was a tale about Kevin Mouse—an overweight, myopic First Division player at Tottenford Rovers who was also a medical student at St Victor’s hospital. He was tiny, hence the nickname, and would eventually team up with another comic stalwart ‘Hot Shot’ Hamish at Princes Park FC. He would eventually manage Melchester Rovers.
Roy of the Rovers came from a gentler time and would be seen as a rather archaic magazine today. Indeed, Viz Comic’s Billy the Fish was based roughly on it with its love of unusual comments from the crowd (‘it looks like a packed stadium tonight.’ ‘I’m sorry was that your foot?’) to its unusual collection of players including Shakin’ Stevens, Mick Hucknall and the ample-bosomed Brown Fox. In one story as Brown Fox stealthily closes down an opponent a member of the crowd shouts ‘Large-breasted Arapaho squaw on!’
Roy of the Rovers made a brief return in 2018 as a graphic novel with the whole Melchester universe shifted once more. Roy is 16 again and looking to earn a trial at Melchester Rovers with Blackie Gray despite looking after his ill father. This time Vic Guthrie is his main rival.
Roy of the Rovers may have been borne of a time when all ‘foreigners’ were viewed with suspicion, all Latin players were flamboyant but lazy and all Scots headstrong and violent, but it was still a great read. I hope the serial continues in some form. After all this time it really would be Roy of the Rovers stuff.
Paco Diaz!