"Champ/We Are United" - UK football comics Matt Richards

In this weeks show we have Neil "Bygone" Berrigan rejoin us to review the pretty rare 1989 "Football Picture Story Special", Matt reviews the latest Rocky Race book, "Rocky's Big Move", and Simmo picks his best XI from "United" during the Champ/Victor years...be prepared for a controversial pick!

The team also includes Tangent Paul and the return of Gull!

It's a long show (apologies - we're useless at timings) so here are rough timings if you want to fast forward to a section...

1989 "Football Picture Story Special" - from 17 mins

"Rocky's Big Move" - from 75 mins

"United" XI - from 81 mins

Enjoy!

Join "Tangent" Paul, Simmo and Matt once again for a football comic journey into the past...Simmo replays the "The Goals Of Jimmy Grant" the season when he played for "United" in the pages of "Victor", Paul gives us his comic XI made up from Danefield United and Kingsbay players and Matt covers all the times Roy Race went in goal from 1954/1993...how many times did he do it????

Welcome to another interview special! this time we talk to Roy of the Rovers artist from 1963 - 1965, Paul Trevillion! Roy is just one part of Paul's incredible career as a sports artist, he is also famous for creating "You Are The Ref!" which appeared under various guises in various publications but probably most famous in the pages of "Shoot". He is an incredible character, and so much fun to meet and interview. Enjoy!

He is back for the 3rd time! We are proud to welcome again, creator of "Striker" Pete Nash, book 26 is due out soon and so he popped into Champ Towers to have a chat about that and other bits and pieces...Gull and Tangent Paul do the interview, Matt is joined in the wings by Simmo! yes the voice of reason is back! Enjoy!

G'day! fair dinkum! bonzer! ...(er that's enough - Ed) in this special "Down Under" episode (I told you - Ed) we meet longtime fan of the show Lee Coulson, an Australian UK football comic fan! He tells us how he got into football and football comics and how he experienced comics thousands of miles away from the UK in a country where football is not the national sport...it's a really interesting story. We also cover comic stories over the years which have an Australian connection, and there's a Kangaroo quiz! of course there is! We can confirm no kangaroos were harmed in the making of this podcast.

It's always interesting hearing other football comic fans thoughts and memories of their favourite stories, storylines, characters etc...and on this weeks episode we meet and hear from, podcast listener Neil Berrigan! Neil's first Roy of The Rovers was 28th September 1985..an interesting period in the comic's history, and since then he's read and collected loads more, and also is a huge Football Picture Story Monthly and Champ/We Are United fan - it was great fun speaking with him, expertly interviewed by Tangent Paul, supported by myself Matt and Gull of the many voices...



Here is the "downthetubes" article regarding circulation figures.

https://downthetubes.net/british-comics-reference/the-british-comic-industry-questions-and-answers/british-comics-sales-figures-the-good-old-days/

Here's also the link to the "Whenshortswereshorts" Barrie Tomlinson episode

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4nbsYXOZSxWeZQYeEIDh4l?si=jra3h8CZT1KkubTpJKEAHw