It’s also not as if he doesn’t have other problems too. At one stage he’s forced to move across the country, leaving all his friends: encountering school bullies, and teachers and trainers who think he’s troubled…

The boots fell apart after a few matches due to their age and could not be repaired. Fearing that he would lose his new-found ability and knowing that "Dead Shot" Keen had played for the local club, Amhurst Albion, Billy went 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. Further confusions and concerns arise as he researches the life of Dead-Shot and realises that he’s often reliving actual events that affected the star and shaped his astounding career. The phenomenon doesn’t let up even after Billy finally meets and befriends his idol… The series concerned Billy Dane, a schoolboy and aspiring footballer, 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 Charles “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”. 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.After its initial set-up the nature of the stories become rather formulaic, with Billy always seeking to be the best he could: trying to wean himself off ghostly footgear and develop innate natural skills. This was usually a huge disappointment as he always failed unless he was wearing the boots of his hero. Thankfully, the astounding illustration always makes the stories feel fresh and the ongoing mystery of how and why the boots work keeps the tension up… Despite his adventures lasting for more than 20 years, Billy remained about 12 or 13 years old throughout the storyline. In the final issue of Sjors in 1975 a completely new ending was devised for the strip. In the UK version Billy's adventures continued indefinitely but in Holland Oberon decided that Sjakie's story should have a definite conclusion. Therefore Billy (or rather Sjakie) signs a contract to become a professional footballer. His hard slog over the years has finally paid off, and the story ends with him giving a toast to the memory of Dead-Shot Keen.

Remember Billy Dane? The kid who found an ancient pair of football boots that once belonged to professional footballer Dead-Shot Keen? And how those boots magically enabled Billy to play superbly in Dead-Shot's style? The series concerned Billy Dane, a schoolboy and aspiring footballer, 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 Charles "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". 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. Dutch: Sjakie Meulemans, Swedish: Benny Guldfot, Finnish: Benny Dane, Benny Kultajalka, Icelandic: Kalli í knattspyrnu (Kalli the footballer) Billy loved football but was unfortunately one of the worst players in his school. However, when clearing out his grandmother’s attic he came across a battered old pair of footie boots that once belonged to ‘Dead-Shot’ Keen, a legendary player of yesteryear who had also been part of the England international team. When Billy put them on he discovered he could suddenly play in the style of Dead-Shot, with the boots having a seemingly supernatural power to improve his skills and guide his actions on the football pitch…Writer Fred Baker ably mixes the soap opera elements (Billy’s problems at school with other pupils and teachers, his worries for his gran who he lives with) with the sporting action (both the school teams and other clubs Billy goes on to represent). Those coming in to the strip afresh will need to accept that it was structured for weekly, incremental delivery – a constant rhythm of resolving the previous week’s cliffhanger, moving the action onwards, and then setting up that week’s cliffhanger. And, of course, collected in one place the repetitive elements that young readers will not have noticed over two years stand out all the more noticeably. Billy’s “magic” boots are regularly in jeopardy (something that would be a feature of the comic throughout its history), frequently needing to be rescued after being lost, thrown away, damaged and so on. He’s also an international star, having been translated into Finnish, Swedish, Icelandic, Dutch, Bengali, Turkish and more… Billy, however, has always been a survivor, the talentless little berk, so no doubt he and his sorcerous soles will continue to periodically resurface somewhere or other. Those boots just keep on walking... Young Billy Dane was one of the most passionate football fans at Bingley Road Junior school…unfortunately he was also one of the worst players! Then, one afternoon, Billy’s grandmother got him to clean out her attic and Billy finds a pair of old fashioned football boots that belonged to ‘Dead-Shot’ Keen – a famous centre forward who once played for England.