Roy of the Rovers

Just setting up a Roy of the Rovers solo league and I am looking for team names. Apparently full leagues were not printed. These are some of the names I've collected. Feel free to add more... along with any kits you know... Thanks in advance.

Blackport
Burndean
Bradport
Railton
Melborough
North Vale
Tynecaster
Redstoke
Portdean
Kelburn
Stansford
Danefield
Swinford
Eaststoke
Gatesfield
Redpool
Carford City
Castlemere
Deans Park
Holverton
Stambridge City
Kingsbay
Oldfield
Walford Rovers
Weston Villa
Yelcomb
East Gate
Rotherton
Melchester Rovers

Ian Brown maybe able to help you. I know he's a keen Mel Rvrs fan.

Thanks, hopefully he'll see the thread

i am sure he will - he posts on most of em!
eh ian?

If you're including teams from some of the other stories, I recall an Axford United in one of them.

Mancaster United

I'm working through the 1978-1980 comics at the moment ...

... 3 other names of 'top flight' teams surface:

Barmouth

Darlton

Sandford.

subbuteo forever 207 wrote:

i am sure he will - he posts on most of em!
eh ian?

'Tis correct, Jon

Chief difficulty is (as noted above) full leagues were not provided, and the comics feature only a small number of league games per season.

• For example, in 1978-79, Melchester Rovers played against 6 teams in the League:

Darlton
Portdean
Tynecaster
Burndean
Carford City
Walford

• They were knocked out of the League Cup by Norboro.

• Their greatest exploits were in the UEFA Cup, where they won the competition by beating:

Dynamo Zarcov
Varagosa
Sorbonne
Rassburg.

• The next season, 1979-80, sees Melchester Rovers play 3 teams in the FA Cup:

Kelburn
Melboro,
before being beaten by 4th Division side, Chalkford Town.

• They were eliminated from the UEFA Cup at the first time of asking, by Heklavik.

• League games were against the following opponents:

Carford City
Eastgate
Kingsbay
Oldfield
Darlton
Walford
Sandford

(Portdean were also still in the 'top flight' during this season).

Thanks that should be enough to get me going, thinking of having 4 divisions of 8 teams each. Should be manageable enough to complete seasons fairly quickly.

Love some of the names they came up with. I can imagine them in the office on a monday. "Who are we playing in the League Cup this week? You combing your hair again Bob?" "How about Yellcomb?" "Done"

You will of course need to have all the correct kits for each team

Sad but actually true.... Going to a good second hand book shop tomorrow to start the Roy of the Rovers collection.....

Ah, a Roy of the Rovers thread - I knew I'd come on board this forum, and I couldn't pass a Rovers thread by...

I'd slightly adjust a couple of your team names:

Blackport to Blackport Rovers (Nipper Lawrence's team in Nipper, I think in Tiger comic rather than RotR)
Danefield to Danefield United (Johnny Dexter's team in The Hard Man)

And you should definitely consider adding Redstone Rovers, who were Mike Dailey's Subbuteo team in Mike's Mini Men.

Other fine teams:

Tynefield City (featuring keeper Gordon Stewart in The Safest Hands in Soccer)

Brentville Albion (team featured in You are the Star)

Selby Villa (featured in Millionaire Villa)

Princes Park (Scottish, one of Hot Shot Hamish' teams)

There's useful information at http://www.royoftherovers.com, including a great colour graphic of Hot Shot Hamish in what I think was his Princes Park kit. I have spare copies of the recent Titan reprints RotR: The 1980s and RotR: World Cup Special. PM me if interested.

Graeme

Thanks again, corrections made and additions added. Going to good book shop tomorrow so I'll see what I can get. Subbuteo and Roy of the Rovers "What a great combination" .... Did someone in the crowd just shout that out

Great idea! I had a similar thought a couple of months back but have only got round to painting up a Melchester team.

Here's a thought, if you are doing 4 divisions, why not have each division as a different player type? For example Dvi 1 could be HW, Div 2 Moulded, Div 3 LW and Div 4 Z's? That way if you play promotion / relegation after the first season you'll have an interesting mix of base combo's playing against each other....might make it a bit more realistic?

I like that idea. Will gradually phase it in when I buy new teams......

If you are doing a solo league with so many teams, that have not been reproduced by Subbuteo...then why not buy Blank figures and bases from Topspin or Santiago? You can get HW replicas, as well as modern figures and LW replicas.

You can then paint them yourself...you can't be any worse than the original kent Housewifes who painted the original Subbuteo teams.

You'll save a lot of money, have teams in the correct colours, and still have money left over to collect original Subbuteo.

Just an idea...

I see a competition between me and a kent housewife coming.... Bring them on

Blimey Monocular That is impressive, i know who to go to now for any ROTR questions. Ever thought of going on Mastermind ?

I used to love a team called Abbottown Albion.....I think that is right,as they played in a kit not disimilar to my
beloved West Bromwich Albion.
On reflection that might of been in Score and Roar...I must stay off the beer!!!!!!

Score and Roar... Don't remember that mate.

Sounds like some Perverse Dating magazine...

spudski wrote:

Score and Roar... Don't remember that mate.

Sounds like some Perverse Dating magazine...

Oh yeh thats right .....

Looks like a good mag lads...Don't know how i missed that.

Apparantly it only lasted a year...then became Scorcher.

I used to get Tiger and Scorcher delivered. Loved Billy's Boots.

http://www.britishcomics.com/Score/index.htm

Yes I know I am wandering of the initial Roy of the Rovers thread,but I have just clambered up the loft to retrieve
these bad boys...nearly breaking my neck in the process I hasten to add.....try harder I hear you all cry!!!!
The aforementioned perverse adult entertainment annual is on the top Ian...ooooeeer Mrs ....



CASTLEBURN CITY


CASTLEBURN UNITED

Nice one Mark...reading the names of those players is hilarious... Dick Sharp, Sandy Beech...then the Irish and Welsh lads...and Sergeant Bucket...

Sergeant Bucket... love it ! Was the physio called Private Sponge.

Just had a look at that RotR site. Another two teams for you, Elbury Wanderers and Cobdale United

Last post, away for a week.

nice selection there Skelly! The only RoTR annual I own is from 79.

On another note, there's a nice documentary on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9lPN98B5uI only about 15 mins long but worth a watch

Have to say, I am lovin' the SOLO PLAY themes being talked about, especially this one!

Look forward to seeing it all unfold.

My knowledge of RotR is largely due to many of the teams from the comic being in the solo league that I've run since about 1977. I've just finished Season 18, and am now preparing everything for Season 19. These are the RotR/Tiger teams and their position going into the new season:

Division 1:
- Brentville Albion
- Everpool
- Princes Park

Division 2:
- Barnes United
- Melchester Rovers (promoted from Div 3)
- North Vale (relegated from Div 1)
- Portdean (promoted from Div 3)

Division 3:
- Blackport Rovers (relegated from Div 2)
- Burndean
- Carford City (relegated from Div 2)
- Redstone Rovers (promoted from Div 4)

Division 4:
- Selby Villa
- Tynefield City

I also have a Melchester City in Division 3. They joined the league when I got a 1960 RotR annual at a jumble sale. It has a team shot inside, with all the player's names, so they became the second Melchester team.

Speaking of player's names... Skell, you've unwittingly done a bit of detective work for me! 3 of the Castleburn player names are ones used in my league, but like many of the ones I first used all those years ago I'd forgotten where I got them from:

Paddy Murphy:
- In my league played for Everpool for many seasons before transferring to 4th Division strugglers Alderbury City under new manager Graeme Tittle. Their fortunes have since turned round and they won the division last season, their first ever achievement.

Taffy Evans:
- Former coach at Portdean, now retired. Never survived the appointment of flamboyant Italian manager Mario Donetti.

Graham Mortlake:
- Defender at 3rd Division Wattlington, recently drafted into the England squad though yet to make the 1st team.

Here's my collection of annuals. Lots of RotR and Tiger, also some Scorchers. Best of the Victor looks like it's going to fall over again... always happens in the middle of the night, and wakes me up with a thud!

Impressed

Good stuff gents....all my boys are on holiday until the big kick-off August 6th...

Melchester City and Melchester Rovers midtable in Premier Divison last season

Blackport finished about 8th in Division 2 Redstoke just above the relegation zone in Division 2

Eastoke Promoted from Division 3

Why not post some of your league tables here or in the solo league thread since there certainly seems to be a lot of interest.

Ok now that you have all given me a good number of teams to populate my leagues I want to move onto stage two....... Kits

Anyone got an idea about what coloured kits the teams play in? I would like to not only play the league but see how many teams I can field in their correct colours. I will now retire to do some research.

Thanks again for all your help so far

Biog of Johnny Dexter with Danefield United kit

One for you Mark http://scorenroar.blogspot.com/

Highboro United
Alvechurch

Was just thumbing through one yesterday

Maybe I did get Score and Roar because I definitely remember using the league tables and updating them every saturday night.

PunkReaper wrote:

Why not post some of your league tables here or in the solo league thread since there certainly seems to be a lot of interest.

Ok now that you have all given me a good number of teams to populate my leagues I want to move onto stage two....... Kits

Anyone got an idea about what coloured kits the teams play in? I would like to not only play the league but see how many teams I can field in their correct colours. I will now retire to do some research.

Thanks again for all your help so far

I've got 56 years of English League Tables and 35 years of my Scottish League .. my Scottish League records are saved as Microsoft Works files but they don't seem to copy well without the pagination etc changing ?

Ok I've got the team names, with the teams either bought or being painted. Next question whether to have 4 leagues of 8 teams or 2 leagues of 16 teams. Discuss.

PunkReaper wrote:

Ok I've got the team names, with the teams either bought or being painted. Next question whether to have 4 leagues of 8 teams or 2 leagues of 16 teams. Discuss.

If you intend running it for several seasons it may be more interesting to have 4 divisions so you experience a lot of promotions and relegations. With two divisions you will get teams competing against a lot of different sides, although if you also run a Cup competition you have this anyway.

PunkReaper wrote:

Ok I've got the team names, with the teams either bought or being painted. Next question whether to have 4 leagues of 8 teams or 2 leagues of 16 teams. Discuss.

What season(s) are you using team names from?

Wow not as organised as that..... Just taken the names from as many Roy of the Rovers stories as I can.. They are all mixed. Are you going to shame into doing more research?

PunkReaper wrote:

Wow not as organised as that..... Just taken the names from as many Roy of the Rovers stories as I can.. They are all mixed. Are you going to shame into doing more research?

No, I'm just heaping research on my own head.

I'm trying to keep with the teams that Melchester faced in the 70s (roughly corresponding to the HW era in Subbuteo). But its a nightmare trying to work out who was promoted / relegated from Divisions 1 and 2 (Melchester style) over that - or any other - time period.

Tbh, I don't think they followed a regular structure at all. By the look of some seasons, it must have been something like 5 up, 5 down! Some seasons covered by the comic feature only a few league matches as all the story space has been gobbled up by Melchester's involvement in one of the Cup competitions.

Some cool kits from the early 70s, though. Stand out as a bit of a contrast to the usual drab fare from that era in terms of football kits!

Someone should do a Peter Upton style website with a Roy of the Rovers database. The Roy of the Rovers site doesn't have a database and it would be interesting to know all the teams mentioned etc...

PunkReaper wrote:

Someone should do a Peter Upton style website with a Roy of the Rovers database. The Roy of the Rovers site doesn't have a database and it would be interesting to know all the teams mentioned etc...

I'm working on something like this ... going through all of the RotR comics I have, and adding to the collection whenever I can to plug the gaps.

However, there will always be gaps in the info, even when every comic has been secured. This is simply because of the way in which the stories were written. The authors of RotR did not set out to provide chronological information, or complete season-by-season information.

Since I have only recently started collecting I probably won't be much help but unless you wish to keep your information to yourself I would love tonsee what you have. I have just started going through my albums and Titan books doing the same thing.