FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 7)

Sparky issue No. 16 had football theme on both covers to mark the 1965 FA Cup Final which took place on 1st May 1965 at Wembley and was contested between Liverpool and Leeds United. The back cover of that issue had a nice Moonsters episode by Bill Ritchie with lots of characters and action. But of course no one did those crowded sets better than Leo Baxendale. The Eagle Spy Doomsday School episode with Grimly Feendish is from WHAM! issue No. 37 (27th February, 1965). Isn’t it beautiful? 

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 6)

Just one football strip today and it is an episode of Scared-Stiff Sam from an early issue of Whoopee! (7th December, 1974). I happen to have both pages of Mike Lacey's original artwork for this set so make sure you scroll down for some close-up scans.

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 5)

Yesterday’s match between England and France in the Ukraine ended in a draw but France didn’t get so lucky when Mudchester United challenged them for the European Cup in this episode of Manager Matt from Scorcher by Ken Reid. Mudchester United also tackled two or three other teams during their 1971 tour of Europe but I’ll save those episodes for later – perhaps the teams will meet in EURO 2012 later in the tournament...

From Scorcher cover dated 19th June, 1971

Here’s another Beano with a football-themed cover that I managed to find:

I just love those scrumptious BUSTER football covers by Nadal and there’s enough of them to last until the end of the month!

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 4)

Match of the Week appeared on the centrespread in Shiver and Shake and depicted weekly fixtures between all sorts of weird opponents, such as Aristocrats vs Peasants, British Navy vs German U-Boats, Explorers vs Jungle Plants, Moonmen vs Spacemen, etc. Here are a couple of samples, the first one illustrated by Leo Baxendale and the second one by Mike Lacey who drew most of the episodes.

From Shiver and Shake issue dated 17th March 1973 (No. 2)

From Shiver and Shake dated 28th April, 1973 (No. 8)

Here is another old Buster cover (number eight) with a football theme. It offers a couple of glimpses of Buster’s infamous Dad Andy Capp:

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 3)

Angel Nadal drew a lot of football-themed Buster covers. Here is a nice sample:

Sub was one of the eight humour series in SCORCHER by Ken Reid from 1970 until 1974. The sample below is from the period when his Odhams career had ended and his work for IPC Magazines was limited to football strips in SCORCHER, until he started drawing Faceache in JET in the spring of 1971.

From Scorcher dated 7th March, 1970

I managed to find very few issues of The BEANO with football-themed covers, here is one by Dudley Watkins:

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 2)

From Scorcher cover dated 26th September, 1970

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 1)

I have planned a series of 24 daily posts from 8th June till 1st July to celebrate EURO 2012. I intend to trawl through my collection of British comics for gems of football-themed humour strips and post them here without much comment, two or three strips a day. I am sure you know there’s plenty to choose from and I hope you’ll enjoy reading them just as much as I enjoy searching for them. 

The football posts will run in parallel with my reviews of COR!! strips and I’ll do my best to make sure that the new theme on Kazoop!! doesn’t interfere with the regular rhythm of one COR!! post every two days.  Enjoy!