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The News marks Pompey victory with massive print and online coverage

The News in Portsmouth has been making the most of Pompey’s first FA Cup victory since 1939 with extensive coverage of the landmark achievement.

The club’s 1-0 win over Cardiff saw the Johnston Press daily produce three special sections in the paper as well as rolling coverage at portsmouth.co.uk.

First up was a ‘Pompey Expects’ wraparound with Saturday’s edition featuring the famous Hero of Trafalgar painting by William Overend.

Design editor Graeme Windell turned Nelson into team manager Harry Redknapp while goalie David James and defender Sol Campbell were on standby as trusted lieutenants.

On Saturday afternoon The News sent three news reporters, three sports reporters and four photographers, one armed with a video camera, to Wembley.

A further three reporters and two photographers covered the thousands of fans watching the match back in Portsmouth, all co-ordinated by digital editor Matt Brown and deputy news editor Simon Pluckrose.

After the final whistle sports editor Howard Frost and three sub-editors had the mammouth task of collating all that information into Sports Mail which hit the streets Saturday evening.

The work didn’t stop there as on Sunday a 20-strong team, including three reporters and four photographers, covered the triumphant team’s victory parade on Southsea Common.

Rolling coverage was again provided online and more stories and photos were pulled together for news and sports pages in Monday’s edition. In total, The News ran 40 pages of brand new coverage from the weekend.

This included a 16-page Monday Sport section, which was devoted to the final, and an eight-page Pompey Parade special containing pictures of the celebrations.

Assistant editor Graeme Patfield said it was one of the biggest efforts the paper had made for a story and was comparable to its specials on the Trafalgar 200 celebrations in 2005.

Editor Mark Waldron said: “It was a remarkable weekend for the city, matched by a fantastic staff effort at The News.

“Everyone pulled out all the stops and did a cracking job as is evident from our first-class coverage in The News, Sports Mail and on portsmouth.co.uk.”