Help identify a football comic

[TessaB]

I wonder if anyone can help me identify this comic that appeared in a football annual my brother had in the 1980s?

The premise is that the main character is a footballer who's been left mute by a gypsy curse. The curse will only be lifted when he scores a hat trick in the FA cup final (and, to give him a sporting chance, has also endowed him with excellent soccer skills).

As far as I can recall, there were two stories (or possibly one story split into two sections) in the annual. The second story - which is the one I remember most clearly - has him playing in the cup final but failing to score a third goal off a penalty in the final moments. In this story the opposing keeper is the only other person who knows about the curse - but he deliberately blocks the goal because he thinks "football needs" a player as good as our hero.

Unfortunately my brother no longer has the annual or remembers what it was called. He would have got it in the 1980s, but probably no later than 1988. I haven't found anything like it in the usual IPC/DC Thomson books I've seen from this period. It's possible it was a general sport/football annual rather than based on a weekly comic, but I've been searching those too without any success. I'd be grateful if anyone has an idea what it could be.

Just for the record, it's definitely not Raven on the Wing - which is what most people think of when I mention gypsy-themed football comics!