A regional daily has stepped up its bid to bring its local football club back home by launching a huge social media campaign.

Coventry City fans were left disillusioned after a row over rent at the Sky Blues’ Ricoh Arena saw the club up sticks to play ‘home’ games 35 miles away in Northampton for the whole of last season.

Now the Coventry Telegraph has issued a direct “Listen To Us” plea to the club’s owners and the Football League via social media.

It asked fans to send in or tweet pictures of themselves holding a #bringCityhome poster, resulting in the hashtag being shared thousands of times by fans all over the country as well as big names from the football world.

Now dozens of the #bringCityhome images have graced the side of a mobile digital ad van which will be touring the streets of Coventry and the capital.

And the front and back pages of yesterday’s Telegraph also featured the readers’ pictures as part of the campaign.

Telegraph editor Alun Thorne said he believed it was vital the paper acted as the voice for the thousands of fans who were desperate to see the club come home.

He said: “We were inundated with readers sending in their pictures backing the Telegraph’s campaign and sharing the message on social media.

“We launched the campaign because the Telegraph believed it is time to bring the club back to the city which shares its name, its history and its traditions.

“Judging by the response we have had it’s clear that football fans not just in Coventry but all over the country share in this belief.”

With no end to the saga in sight, the Telegraph also hand-delivered copies of the paper to the head offices of the Football League in London, as its board met to decide on a key issue which could remove one of the stumbling blocks to bringing the club home.

Reporter Simon Gilbert, pictured below, also took papers to the football club owners’ base in London as a reminder of what the fans want.