A regional newspaper tale about a Lord Mayor’s trousers falling down in front of a group of schoolchildren has been voted the top press funny of 2010 by HoldtheFrontPage readers.

The Leicester Mercury story won 23pc of the vote in our annual poll held over Christmas and New Year which closed yesterday.

Our original shortlist of 12 featured our choice of the best mis-spellings, subbing errors, bizarre news judgements and missing headlines of the past year.

Ironically, however, the Mercury’s tale, written by Political Correspondent David MacLean, was no unintentional gaffe on the part of the Midlands daily – but a deliberately amusing headline.

Lord Mayor Strousers Falldown

It scored a narrow victory over its nearest rivals, Herald reporter Sarah Swain’s interview with entertainer John Barrowman which ended with the latter getting rather friendly, and the Stratford Herald’s ‘Cox’s grovelling up their bottoms article’ – rated the ante-post favourite by some seasoned observers of the media funnies scene.

Support was widely spread with each of our 12 nominations getting at least one vote. The full breakdown of voting was as follows:

The Mercury becomes the latest holder of our, er, prestigious award following the Welwyn and Hatfield Times, which ran away with the prize in 2009 for its ‘Dead Man Found in Graveyard’ bill (below.)

Please keep the funnies coming to: [email protected] and hopefully this year’s collection will be even better!

Welwyn Times Dead Man in Graveyard