Football's Comic Book Heroes

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There was, of course, Billy’s Boots, which over the years comprehensively depicted every conceivable way in which a young boy could lose his football boots. Boys' comics have provided their readers with entertainment, excitement, and escapism ever since they were first published in the late nineteenth century. Kevin Keegan was the first cover star of Match and supported the magazine with his column, Learn To Play The Keegan Way.

Phoenix wrote:In my view, it was the best football series since the eight serials in Adventure about Baldy Hogan and Burhill United between 1946 and 1952, which did the same thing in text form on a much wider canvas. Solid, reliable, knows what he’s doing,” reads the speech bubble, “Better and better, he’s got the ‘United’ touch.

MMi wrote:Phoenix: I can only imagine that Rocky is just a pet/nickname his parents gave him as a child growing up, whereas his real name would also be Roy. Before the month is out Jimmy’s hat-trick against Ringhurst (“Jimmy fooled the goalkeeper – by not shooting! He finances Redburn Rovers and plays centre-forward when his schedule of meetings with foreign royalty permit. Bernard turning up was like manna from heaven, in precisely the same way as Charlie 'Iron' Barr's in 1983. There is virtually no background, it looks as though only the minimum to get the story across has been done, it really does look amateurish.

Even found a huge box full at a Fete one year (I was there only on my bicycle so had to persuade my parents to go back down later to pick it up in the car), no one wanted it and I actually got it for nothing. Remember his team were getting beat one week and he turned up and went straight into goals whereby he launched a huge kick out up the pitch . I remember getting the first ever addition ( ma Da got it for me and he used to read it on the fly too ! The majority of pages are undamaged with some creasing or tearing, and pencil underlining of text, but this is minimal. Strips included "Bobby of the Blues", "Paxton's Powerhouse","Lag's Eleven", "Billy's Boots" and "Kangaroo Kid".

Also liked the magazine Football League Review which was given away free with programmes in England. Within a fortnight the brothers are both in their respective first team for “The match all of Castleburn was waiting for – United v City!