Roy of the Rovers in Greece

Greece is not only the best place in the world for holidays, but it’s also full of Roy fans. During the 70’s and the 80’s, many generations of Greek boys (mostly) grew up dreaming of being “like Roy”…

The Roy of the Rovers comic strip was first published in Greece in 1971 in “Zagor” magazine, under the title “Roy Race” and it lasted for 2 years. They published excellent stories from the periods 1965-66 to 1970-71, not in exact order. Afterwards, in 1975, the “Dynamic boy” magazine published the “School years of an ace”, a strip about Roy’s school years (apparently!). In autumn 1976 they started the story “Roy comes back” with stories that were on “Tiger” magazine 5 years before (season 71-72, originally). The adventures went on until 1982, when it stopped for about 3 years and in 1985 they brought it back as “Roy of the Rovers” or “Roy of Melchester”. This time it was with stories from the “Roy of the Rovers” magazine (starting from February ’82, originally). It went on for almost 6 years, till 1991, when the “Boy” mag. was closed down.

During this era thousands of Greek boys were waiting eagerly for the next issue to copy movements from our paper idol and put them into practice in the alleys which were full of boys trying to impress their friends and – of course – girls. Back then, English football was shown on TV only late on Wednesday evenings and on Saturday afternoons, so we could learn more easily through our comic heroes. We only needed a plastic ball and a lot of patience, persistence, tolerance for our bleeding knees and … deaf ears for our mothers who were looking for us in the neighbourhoods. We didn’t have much skill, but we trusted our dreams. Roy made it all look easy and if he could do it, so could we…

We feel very sorry of today’s children. Now all comics are full of blood and violence. There are no alleys left and they prefer to play football on the computer. They still want to be great footballers, but now it’s for the money, not for fulfilling a dream. That’s why Roy’s more important than ever; to teach our children the same sporting values that he taught us. Please bring him back!