Some journalists say that this character is the reason why English football has this weird fixation towards the messiah with the ball on his feet. Passing, combination play, playing the team game? Pah! Pass it to the messiah, and he will score a goal in the last minutes and save your team.
He’s had a career of 40 years or so as a player cum manager, with nearly 500 goals for his team, 10 Premier Leagues, 10 FA Cups, 4 European Cups, 4 Euro Cup Winners’ Cups — he’s basically the almost-god of football. He’s Roy Race of course, or Roy of the Rovers, as we know him.
A six-foot-two, big, blond and supremely skillful striker for the Melchester Rovers, he arrived as the titular character of the ‘Roy of the Rovers’ comics strip in 1954, as a 16-year old, who had to be drafted into the first team at the final of the European cup of 1955, where he scored a goal at the dying embers of the game to win the Rovers the European Cup. He has had a glorious reign ever since, first as player from 1955, then as manager from 1975 to 1993 (he was playing the first division right up until he was 55), and then as a manager.
When I say that he is the ultimate dream fulfillment of every young boy who has ever kicked a football, I would not be exaggerating it. Oh how glorious the matches were! Did you read the one when the Rovers beat Varagosa to win the European Cup, defeating the Spanish wonder-striker Paco Diaz? Or the one when the Rovers had gone to play the Intercontinental Cup against Bagota, and were kidnapped? Or when they played, and won a cricket match against the Cricket World XI, fronted by the demon fast bowler, the Aussie Ralph Micker? I had last read the series perhaps 25 years back, but I can recite almost the entire first team.
The volatile Vic Guthrie; Blackie Grey, the dependable vice-captain; Charlie Carter the goalkeeper, Paco Diaz, the overseas recruit; Noel Baxter, the enfant-terrible… I think I can go on. I was introduced to football in 1986, when as a kid, I saw (and recalled nothing but the sheer excitement of) Diego Maradona’s World Cup. That was, in itself, a miracle.
The greatest footballer the world has ever seen, the captain of an average bunch of players, would take on the might of Italy, England, Germany and the rest of the world, and defeat them all, and win the world cup. Roy of the Rovers came soon after, as a one-page comic strip, translated to my native Bengali in the pages of Anandamela, the children’s’ magazine. I was hooked to the game, and have stayed ever since.
So, is Roy of the Rovers unrealistic wish-fulfillment stuff? Ho-hum mythology, as I have read many journalists call it? Sure! But it’s glorious, and innocent, and harmless. And that’s something we can all perhaps stand behind in this day and age.