Scorcher

First Issue: 10th January 1970
Last Issue: 5th October 1974
Copyright: IPC Magazines

“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.

Billy Finds the Boots

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.

First Appearance of the Famous ‘Hot-Shot’

Scorcher comic merged with Score ‘n’ Roar comic to become Scorcher & Score on 3rd July 1971 and continued its run until October 12th 1974 when Scorcher itself merged with Tiger comic to become Tiger & Scorcher.

Scorcher Comic First Issue 10th January 1970