The power of picture bills hit the streets of Birmingham to catch the eyes of celebrating ‘Baggies’ fans following Wednesday night’s play-off victory against Wolves.

A football bonanza in terms of newspaper sales looks set to continue for the Birmingham Mail following last night's victory by West Bromwich Albion.

The Baggies are very much a Birmingham club, with their ground on the border of Birmingham and West Bromwich, and with the Mail's biggest district office in the centre of the neighbouring town.

The club's 4-2 aggregate triumph over Wolves sent a capacity 29,000 crowd wild at the final whistle, and yesterday Mail had a poster front, six pages inside and a back page splash celebrating the qualification for the Wembley play-off final.

But the latest trick up the Mail’s sleeve are powerful picture bills plastered over A-boards, vendors’ boxes and newsagents across the region.

Editor Steve Dyson said: "The hunger for pictures and words on what was effectively a cup semi-final will result in healthy sales.

"The new picture bills will really catch football fans’ eyes and drive them in to buy what will become souvenir copies.

"We have eight pages of pictures – including some great expressions on the faces of Baggies’ fans Adrian Chiles and Frank Skinner, plus match reports from our WBA reporter Chris Lepkowski and Wolves’ man Paul Berry, along with a colour commentary from Chief Football Writer Colin Tattum."

Steve added: "I’m sure that editors years ago must have used picture bills, but it’s a new thing for us.

"Earlier this week, we had a bus smash in Dudley which killed a pedestrian and set light to a house.

"Spectacular pictures came in from the air ambulance, and Gemma Tandy, one of our newspaper sales managers, had the great idea of using one as the main part of the live billing.

"This resulted in a huge buzz across the city, and we’ve such fantastic pictures of the Baggies victory that we’re doing it again today.

"Going forward, it’s now going to be the picture editor’s responsibility to respond to particular picture stories, most probably live, dramatic ones and sport, and if we see positive figures we’ll make it part of the day job."

The company is expecting healthy sales again on May 29 if the Baggies win the Bank Holiday play-off final against Derby at Wembley.

He added: "I’ve got a tenner and a bottle of bubbly riding on it, as our advertising director Justin Farnan is a Derby fan. I’m looking forward to spending his money!"