Roy of the Rovers is a British comic strip about the life and exploits of a fictional footballer named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers. The strip first appeared in the Tiger in 1954, before giving its name to a weekly (and later monthly) comic magazine, published by IPC and Fleetway from 1976 until 1995, in which it was the main feature. The weekly strip ran until 1993, following Roy's playing career until its conclusion after he lost his left foot in a helicopter crash. When the monthly comic was launched later that year, the focus switched to Roy's son, Rocky, who also played for Melchester. This publication folded after only 19 issues. The adventures of the Race family were subsequently featured from 1997 until May 2001 in the monthly Match of the Day football magazine, in which father and son were reunited as manager and player respectively. Football-themed stories were a staple of British comics from the 1950s onwards, and Roy of the Rovers was one of the most popular. To keep the strip exciting, Melchester was almost every year either competing for major honours or struggling against relegation to a lower division. The strip followed the structure of the football season, thus there were several months each year when there was no football.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_of_the_Rovers

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1297:

First War of Scottish Independence: The Scots defeated English troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on the River Forth near Stirling. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge

1709:

An allied British-Dutch-Austrian force defeated the French at the Battle of Malplaquet, one of the bloodiest battles of the War of the Spanish Succession. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Malplaquet

1789:

U.S. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, co-writer of the Federalist Papers, became the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton

1945:

The Japanese-run camp at Batu Lintang, Sarawak in Borneo was liberated by the Australian 9th Division, averting the planned massacre of its 2,000-plus Allied POWs and civilian internees by four days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Lintang_camp

1992:

The eye of Hurricane Iniki, the most powerful hurricane to strike the state of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Islands in recorded history, passed directly over the island of Kauai, killing six people and causing around USD$1.8 billion dollars in damage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Iniki

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

masochism (n): The enjoyment of receiving pain http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/masochism

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

On September 11, 2001, the world fractured. It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow — the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction. --Barack Obama http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barack_Obama