Billy's Boots
Encyclopedia
Billy's Boots was a popular British comic strip
by writer Fred Baker and artist John Gillatt, later continued by Mike Western
. There was an earlier, humour series called Billy's Boots, written and drawn by Frank Purcell, which appeared in Tiger
between 1961 and 1963, with a similar premise to this later series. The later more serous Billy appeared in the first issue of Scorcher in 1970, and later moved to Tiger when the two comics merged in 1974. In 1985 Tiger in turn merged with Eagle
and the strip moved again, however just a year later Billy's adventures relocated once more, this time to Roy of the Rovers
. New adventures were included in the weekly comic until May 1990 (later followed by reprints), before he switched to Best of Roy of the Rovers Monthly. The strip also appeared in annuals
, including annuals for comics which had themselves ceased publication, and is still fondly remembered by fans of the "golden age" of British boys' comics. In Finland and Sweden, Billy's Boots was published in Buster
magazine. In the UK, stories based on Billy's earliest adventures appeared in Total Football magazine until it closed in 2001, and Billy's story was also reprinted for a few months in the defunct Striker
comic.
, who was an extremely poor player until he discovered a pair of old style, ankle high, football boots while cleaning his grandmother's loft. The boots, which his grandfather had bought as a souvenir, had belonged, decades before, to a famous professional striker
called Jimmy "Dead Shot" Keen. In a manner which was never explained in the story, the boots possess special abilities which turn Billy into a fantastic football player when he wore them. In addition to giving Billy the physical skill to score great goals, the boots also granted him the intuition to be in the right place at the time on the pitch, leading him to feel that they have a "mind of their own".
However, despite the boots' obvious importance to him, he would repeatedly lose them or have them stolen.
Unfortunately, being so old, after he wears them a few times the boots soon fell apart, and were unable to be repaired. Billy, fearing that he would lose his new-found ability and knowing that "Dead Shot" Keen had played for the local club, Amhurst Albion, decided to go to their ground to see if any of Keen's other boots remained there. Having secretly entered the stadium, he found the boot room, and discovered another pair of Keen's old boots which, much repaired, he used for the remainder of the story.
The boots endowed Billy with sufficient ability to make regular appearances in schoolboy representative matches, appearing for Southern Schools against their Western, Northern and Eastern counterparts, and the full England Schoolboys team, with whom he travelled on tours to France and Germany.
In 1971, while playing for England in one such tour match in France, the boots split and Billy took them to a local shoe repairer's shop. When he went to collect them, the elderly owner told Billy that he recognised the boots as a pair he had made as a special order for Keen many years earlier. Billy asked him to make an identical pair, as a contingency against future damage or loss of the original boots. However, when Billy wore the new boots in his school's next match, they did not enable Billy to play in Keen's style, and he missed a penalty, so he had to revert to the original pair at half time with the consequent restoration of his abilities.
Billy was often able to anticipate future events in his own life by reading Keen's book The Life of Dead Shot Keen. Billy's life often mirrored Keen's, such as the time when he came on as a substitute in a school match with his team losing 0-7, and scored 8 goals himself to win the match, or when he accidentally got into trouble by being selected for both sides in a schools' cup final. He had previously read about Keen's similar experiences while turning out for his teams. He was thus able to foresee events and work out solutions to problems.
In February 1971 Billy sat his 11+. Despite his gran forbidding him to play football so he could concentrate on his schoolwork, he failed to qualify for the Grammar School
, but achieved a good enough grade to attend the local Secondary School
, Kenwood Technical.
Billy lived with his grandmother, but no mention was ever made of the fate of his parents. In 1973 Billy and his grandmother moved to the village of Groundwood to live with his grandmother's elderly sister Kate, who owned a large house there.
By the early 1980s, Billy was playing as Centre Forward for Groundwood School, alongside pals such as Jimmy Dawson, Reg Wood, Marvin Soames and Harvey Crisp. The strip regularly involved mishaps involving his boots, which were periodically lost, stolen or damaged, resulting in Billy underperforming and thus being dropped from the school team. In several instances, he turned out for opposing sides such as "Merlin" or "Brand X", scoring against the school first team, thus embarrassing the sports teacher, Mr Harris.
Each week, the strip was introduced with the words, "Billy Dane owned an ancient pair of football boots which used to belong to old-time soccer star, Dead Shot Keen. In some strange way, the boots enabled Billy to play in Dead Shot's style".
During the strip's run in Eagle, the football element of the story was downplayed somewhat, focusing instead on Billy's exploits whilst on the run from a council home where he had been placed when his grandmother (with whom he lived) had been taken ill. There would often be no football action for several weeks, which was odd given that the central premise of the strip was football-based. When the strip moved to Roy of the Rovers, football once again became the central element in the strip. These years focused on playing for Groundwood School, with the emphasis often placed on whether he could help them win cup competitions rather than needing the boots to be successful.
Keen was also a skilled cricketer
, and Billy discovered a pair of his old cricket boots, which had similar beneficial effects on his performance on the cricket field during the summer months.
Despite his adventures lasting for more than 20 years, Billy remained about 12 or 13 years old throughout the storyline.
-based rock band Half Man Half Biscuit
included the line "Is this me, or is this Dead-Shot Keen?" - in reference to Billy's oft-voiced wondering about his ability - in the song "Our Tune" on their 1991 album MacIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt
.
In a review of the film Like Mike
, the British magazine TV Choice stated that the film would "have some dads thinking wistfully back to the comic-strip days of Billy's Boots", years after it has ceased publication.
The film There's Only One Jimmy Grimble
from 2000 with Ray Winston, Robert Carlyle and Lewis Mckenzie as Jimmy Grimble bears a resemblance to the strip.
Dead Shot Keen is called
Billy's Boots used to be regularly translated into Bengali
and published in the popular Bengali monthly magazine "Shuktaara" as "Billir Boot", circulated mainly in West Bengal, India.
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
by writer Fred Baker and artist John Gillatt, later continued by Mike Western
Mike Western
Mike Western was a British comics artist. He worked as a clean-up artist for GB Animation after military service in the Second World War, and later at Halas and Batchelor on their 1954 film adaptation of Animal Farm...
. There was an earlier, humour series called Billy's Boots, written and drawn by Frank Purcell, which appeared in Tiger
Tiger (comic)
Tiger was a British comic magazine published from 1954 to 1985. The comic was launched under the editorship of Derek Birnage on 11 September 1954, under the name Tiger – The Sport and Adventure Picture Story Weekly, and featured predominantly sporting strips...
between 1961 and 1963, with a similar premise to this later series. The later more serous Billy appeared in the first issue of Scorcher in 1970, and later moved to Tiger when the two comics merged in 1974. In 1985 Tiger in turn merged with Eagle
Eagle (comic)
Eagle was a seminal British children's comic, first published from 1950 to 1969, and then in a relaunched format from 1982 to 1994. It was founded by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar from Lancashire. Morris edited a parish magazine called The Anvil, but felt that the church was not communicating...
and the strip moved again, however just a year later Billy's adventures relocated once more, this time to Roy of the Rovers
Roy of the Rovers (comic)
The Roy of the Rovers comic was launched as a weekly on 25 September 1976, named after the established comic strip of the same name that first appeared as weekly feature in the Tiger on 11 September 1954. The title ran for 853 issues, until 20 March 1993, and included other football...
. New adventures were included in the weekly comic until May 1990 (later followed by reprints), before he switched to Best of Roy of the Rovers Monthly. The strip also appeared in annuals
Annual publication
An annual publication, more often called simply an annual, is a book or a magazine, comic book or comic strip published yearly. For example, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication....
, including annuals for comics which had themselves ceased publication, and is still fondly remembered by fans of the "golden age" of British boys' comics. In Finland and Sweden, Billy's Boots was published in Buster
Buster (sport comic)
Buster was a sport comic magazine published in Sweden 1967 - 2005 and in Finland in the 1970s and 1980s. In December 2005, Egmont discontinued the publication of Buster magazine....
magazine. In the UK, stories based on Billy's earliest adventures appeared in Total Football magazine until it closed in 2001, and Billy's story was also reprinted for a few months in the defunct Striker
Striker (comic)
Striker was a comic strip and magazine which was featured in the tabloid newspaper The Sun from 1985 until 2009 and in the British magazine Nuts from January to October 2010. It was created by Pete Nash. Since its inception, the strip revolved around the life of Nick Jarvis Striker was a comic...
comic.
Story overview
The series concerned Billy Dane, a schoolboy and aspiring footballerFootball (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
, who was an extremely poor player until he discovered a pair of old style, ankle high, football boots while cleaning his grandmother's loft. The boots, which his grandfather had bought as a souvenir, had belonged, decades before, to a famous professional striker
Striker
Forwards, also known as strikers, are the players on a team in association football who play nearest to the opposing team's goal, and are therefore principally responsible for scoring goals...
called Jimmy "Dead Shot" Keen. In a manner which was never explained in the story, the boots possess special abilities which turn Billy into a fantastic football player when he wore them. In addition to giving Billy the physical skill to score great goals, the boots also granted him the intuition to be in the right place at the time on the pitch, leading him to feel that they have a "mind of their own".
However, despite the boots' obvious importance to him, he would repeatedly lose them or have them stolen.
Unfortunately, being so old, after he wears them a few times the boots soon fell apart, and were unable to be repaired. Billy, fearing that he would lose his new-found ability and knowing that "Dead Shot" Keen had played for the local club, Amhurst Albion, decided to go to their ground to see if any of Keen's other boots remained there. Having secretly entered the stadium, he found the boot room, and discovered another pair of Keen's old boots which, much repaired, he used for the remainder of the story.
The boots endowed Billy with sufficient ability to make regular appearances in schoolboy representative matches, appearing for Southern Schools against their Western, Northern and Eastern counterparts, and the full England Schoolboys team, with whom he travelled on tours to France and Germany.
In 1971, while playing for England in one such tour match in France, the boots split and Billy took them to a local shoe repairer's shop. When he went to collect them, the elderly owner told Billy that he recognised the boots as a pair he had made as a special order for Keen many years earlier. Billy asked him to make an identical pair, as a contingency against future damage or loss of the original boots. However, when Billy wore the new boots in his school's next match, they did not enable Billy to play in Keen's style, and he missed a penalty, so he had to revert to the original pair at half time with the consequent restoration of his abilities.
Billy was often able to anticipate future events in his own life by reading Keen's book The Life of Dead Shot Keen. Billy's life often mirrored Keen's, such as the time when he came on as a substitute in a school match with his team losing 0-7, and scored 8 goals himself to win the match, or when he accidentally got into trouble by being selected for both sides in a schools' cup final. He had previously read about Keen's similar experiences while turning out for his teams. He was thus able to foresee events and work out solutions to problems.
In February 1971 Billy sat his 11+. Despite his gran forbidding him to play football so he could concentrate on his schoolwork, he failed to qualify for the Grammar School
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
, but achieved a good enough grade to attend the local Secondary School
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
, Kenwood Technical.
Billy lived with his grandmother, but no mention was ever made of the fate of his parents. In 1973 Billy and his grandmother moved to the village of Groundwood to live with his grandmother's elderly sister Kate, who owned a large house there.
By the early 1980s, Billy was playing as Centre Forward for Groundwood School, alongside pals such as Jimmy Dawson, Reg Wood, Marvin Soames and Harvey Crisp. The strip regularly involved mishaps involving his boots, which were periodically lost, stolen or damaged, resulting in Billy underperforming and thus being dropped from the school team. In several instances, he turned out for opposing sides such as "Merlin" or "Brand X", scoring against the school first team, thus embarrassing the sports teacher, Mr Harris.
Each week, the strip was introduced with the words, "Billy Dane owned an ancient pair of football boots which used to belong to old-time soccer star, Dead Shot Keen. In some strange way, the boots enabled Billy to play in Dead Shot's style".
During the strip's run in Eagle, the football element of the story was downplayed somewhat, focusing instead on Billy's exploits whilst on the run from a council home where he had been placed when his grandmother (with whom he lived) had been taken ill. There would often be no football action for several weeks, which was odd given that the central premise of the strip was football-based. When the strip moved to Roy of the Rovers, football once again became the central element in the strip. These years focused on playing for Groundwood School, with the emphasis often placed on whether he could help them win cup competitions rather than needing the boots to be successful.
Keen was also a skilled cricketer
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, and Billy discovered a pair of his old cricket boots, which had similar beneficial effects on his performance on the cricket field during the summer months.
Despite his adventures lasting for more than 20 years, Billy remained about 12 or 13 years old throughout the storyline.
In popular culture
The WirralMetropolitan Borough of Wirral
The Metropolitan Borough of Wirral is a metropolitan borough of Merseyside, in North West England. It has a population of 311,200, and encompasses of the northern part of the Wirral Peninsula. Major settlements include Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, Heswall, Hoylake and West Kirby. The city of...
-based rock band Half Man Half Biscuit
Half Man Half Biscuit
Half Man Half Biscuit, often "HMHB", are an English rock band from Birkenhead, Merseyside, active since the mid-1980s, known for satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs. The group comprises Nigel Blackwell , Neil Crossley , Ken Hancock , and Carl Henry...
included the line "Is this me, or is this Dead-Shot Keen?" - in reference to Billy's oft-voiced wondering about his ability - in the song "Our Tune" on their 1991 album MacIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt
MacIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt
McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt is the third album released by UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit in 1991. It was the first album released after the band had reformed in 1990....
.
In a review of the film Like Mike
Like Mike
Like Mike is a 2002 film, directed by John Schultz and starring Lil' Bow Wow, Morris Chestnut, Jonathan Lipnicki and Brenda Song. It was produced in association with NBA Entertainment and features many cameo appearances by NBA stars...
, the British magazine TV Choice stated that the film would "have some dads thinking wistfully back to the comic-strip days of Billy's Boots", years after it has ceased publication.
The film There's Only One Jimmy Grimble
There's Only One Jimmy Grimble
There's Only One Jimmy Grimble is a 2000 film set around Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. The film centred on one young boy's dream to play for Manchester City F.C.-Plot:...
from 2000 with Ray Winston, Robert Carlyle and Lewis Mckenzie as Jimmy Grimble bears a resemblance to the strip.
Translations
Billy Dane is called- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: Sjakie Meulemans, SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
: Benny Guldfot, FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
: Benny Dane, Benny Kultajalka, IcelandicIcelandic languageIcelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...
: Kalli í knattspyrnu (Kalli the footballer)
Dead Shot Keen is called
- Dutch: Voltreffer Vick, Swedish: Kanon-Keen, Finnish: Kanuuna-Keen
Billy's Boots used to be regularly translated into Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
and published in the popular Bengali monthly magazine "Shuktaara" as "Billir Boot", circulated mainly in West Bengal, India.
Sources
- McAlpine, Duncan, The Comic Book Price Guide 1996/97 Edition (Titan Books, 1996)
- Official Roy of the Rovers website
- Scorcher page at britishcomics.com