Indeed in all the monitoring with what’s
going on in football I got all nostalgic and hankered for a simpler
time. A time where the real excitement was represented in comic form.
Back in the day I would not be ashamed to spend all my hard earned money
on football stuff – magazines, sure, but especially the football
comics.
I get the impression as with all of
timing, I missed out on the golden age of football comics, but I was
still around for the King of Football Comics whilst he had not hung up
his boots in Roy of the Rovers.
It’s
worth giving honourable mentions to some other football comic heroes
like ‘Hotshot’ Hamish Balfour and the Kevin ‘Mighty’ Mouse – that was
really funny and I loved catching up with how much defenders and goalies
would cower in terror at the shots that Hamish would ram home or the
skilful and ingenius play of the Mighty Mouse. There were other comic
characters as well who played the Beautiful Game that I loved to read
and then there was the series of mini comic books relling various
football tales with the likes of Everpool and Liverton and the such
like. Good comic books all.
Yet most of them would not have seen the
light of day if it wasn’t for the daddy of them all – Roy of the
Rovers. As with quite a lot of epic names and legends I felt he kind of
got tired near the end of his run and when his foot was amputated and
stuff, that was when it became too much like a soap opera for my
liking. Of course the travails of Roy at Melchester are like a soap
opera, but they are not a proper soap opera and remain ever rooted in
football, as it should.
It
was Roy of the Rovers that opened my eyes to some of the rules of
conventional story-telling. The hero wins, the odds will be great
against him succeeding, there has to be serious moments of peril and the
occasional cliffhanger to keep things interesting, but no matter what
the hero always wins. The trick of continuity, which died out as he was
on his last legs (remember it was just the foot, not leg that was
amputated), was coming up with scenarios that could maintain the issue
of peril and keep it believable up to the resolution. Whether that was
Roy fitting in at Melchester, crisis over his marriage, problems with
his children, rebellion at Melchester, chase for the Championship,
challenge for the Cup, playing for England, battling to avoid rebellion
and even that awesome storyline that saw him leave Melchester and then
eventually return to the hero’s welcome. For the length of time it was
out, the writers did a great job in keeping it going and allowing the
storylines to remain intriguing for new readers as well as the older
ones.
As
you know, nothing beats a good story, so being in love with Roy of the
Rovers kept me in touch with some good stories over time and kept the
flame burning in me regarding the wonder of words, the sweet success of
sublime storytelling and nailing the narrative.
I’m not sure if culture and society today
is geared towards a football book like Roy of the Rovers anymore.
That’s a shame in a way to think that some might miss out on such gems,
but hey times change and I’m sure some blogger a generation later will
wax lyrical about something similar of today’s cultural assortments.
Yet I am a man of my time, even if some
of my tastes were before my time and so it is a pleasure to state that
among many of the distinguished unofficial sponsors of this site, Roy of
the Rovers has its pride of place.
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