A strip from The Hotspur

See The Hotspur see issues -

Cat Street Kids, The (series characters; humorous; artist Willie Ritchie).

37 - ? (series originally titled – Cat Street Cricket Kids, The. Title of the series changed to The Cat Street Kids in issue 44).
starts prior to 50 - ?; 77 – 79; 81 – 85; 88; 89.

Writer:- The Hotspur editorial team. Artist:- Ritchie.

Main cast:- Stonewall; and a group of young boys, who don't appear to have names.

Time period:- 1960's.

This humorous one page strip features a group of young sporting boys playing cricket. As the series went on, the word 'cricket,' was dropped and the series was just called The Cat Street Street Kids.

This was an unusual strip for two reasons.

a) In some issues there were numerous panels, but some weeks the strip was presented as a one page panel. (Issue 50 being a good example of a one page story, packed with good artwork and plenty of gags).
and b) as mentioned above the word, 'cricket' was dropped and there was also less focus on sport, with the boys creating havoc in different working situations. For example on a car ferry or in a TV studio.

The following information about Willie Ritchie is from the University of Dundee website -

Born in Glasgow in 1931, Ritchie studied at Glasgow School of Art. After serving in the Korean War during his National Service, Ritchie joined the staff of DC Thomson. Initially working mainly for the Weekly News, he began creating comic strips for the Beano in 1955, and would go on to work for many other titles including the Beezer, Bunty, Sparky, Bimbo and Twinkle. His clean, simple style never dated, and long after his official retirement he was still in demand for the Snooty & Scamp pony strips or the Clan McWee children's books. [Ritchie died in 2010].

The following adventures of The Cat Street Kids are from issues 37; 38; 40; 43; 45; 50; 61; 62; 63; 71 & 80.

***Please note that I am using a standard thumbnail image for all the full size pictures on this page. This is purely being done to save myself some time.***