A free digital-only football magazine has been launched by a weekly newspaper.

The Rotherham Advertiser has produced its first issue of The Match, aimed at supporters of Rotherham United Football Club.

The launch of the online magazine, which will be released to subscribers every Monday lunchtime, is being coupled with a change in the way the club is covered in the Advertiser, which goes to print on Fridays.

Each issue of The Match will include a match report from the previous Saturday, photo galleries, statistics and embedded videos and audio clips, as well as links to various relevant websites, such as Rotherham United’s, and the Advertiser’s other social media outlets.

The idea is the brainchild of sports editor Paul Rickett, and has been in development since last season.

Editor Andrew Mosley said: “We reduced the length of our match reports as they might have been alright ten or 15 years ago, but most fans have read the detail of what happened in a game by the time the Advertiser comes out the following Friday.

“Advertising has been sold around it, which has meant we haven’t had to charge a subscription fee to make it pay, and on a weekly basis it won’t increase the workload by a great amount as it will reduce content surrounding the match in Friday’s paper, which we will use for analysis and looking ahead to the next game.”

The initial test edition focuses on Saturday’s friendly match between United and German club FSV Mainz.

A 24-page supplement on the club’s forthcoming season will also feature in this Fridays’s print edition of the Advertiser.

Andrew added: “Hopefully the combination will mean we attract some younger readers while increasing our offering to those who prefer to buy a copy of the paper.”