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"Young football followers everywhere will thrill to the
soccer action, stories and features and funnies" said Pete the office Junior at
Scorcher comic. Scorcher comic appeared 10th January 1970 and introduced a a
strip that would outlive Scorcher comic by a long way. First issue of Scorcher
was the first outing for "Billy's Boots" (John Gillatt). Billy Dane went to
Bingley Road school where all his friends were crazy about football. Billy was
also football crazy but unfortunately he wasn't any good. Most of the other lads
would not play footie with him because he couldn't "play football for toffee."
However, all was not lost, whilst cleaning out his Gran's attic he found an air
rifle and a pair of old football boots. The football boots had once belonged to
"Dead Shot Keen, the old centre forward for England." Billy's granddad had
bought them as a souvenir. Wearing the boots gave Billy the ability to play
football like the old star. Billy's story was often fraught with difficulties
which often involved Billy losing the boots i.e. the bin men have took the boots
and its the cup final tomorrow. Dead Shot Keen even had an old pair of cricket
boots, how lucky was that? Billy survived the frequent comic transfers from
Scorcher to Tiger
to Eagle to Roy of
the Rovers.
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Billy Finds the Boots! |
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Also in issue one, Redstone Rovers successful summer tour of
Australia was marred by an injury to their centre forward in the last game. With
only two weeks left to the start of the English soccer season, Redstone's centre
forward, "Striker" Short was out with a broken leg. On the way back to the
airport, the Redstone team stopped for a kick around. Suddenly, the captain
spotted something in the distance. A jeep was chasing Kangaroos, trying to
capture them. The jeep drove the kangaroos in the direction of the team. As the
team moved out of the way they noticed a boy running with the kangaroos.
Suddenly the boy came across a loose football and launched it like a rocket at
the driver of the jeep. With the driver knocked clear out of the jeep, the team
mates remarked ""no goalie in the world could keep a ball from him out of the
net", "there's our replacement for Striker Short."The Kangaroo Kid" was brought
to Britain where he became a football star.
Royal's Rangers was the first story in the first issue of
Scorcher. Royal's Rangers was the story of Caxford Rangers and their manager Ben
Royal. Ben Royal was the watching the game whilst speaking to a reporter. The
many tales of Royal's Rangers including that of Rod Harper, the skipper, were
relayed to the reporter.
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First
appearance of the famous 'Hot-Shot'. |
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