The South Wales Echo failed to publish on Monday after serious production problems wiped out the day’s edition.

Contingency plans – which would normally have routed production to a backup plant in Birmingham – were altered because of the bank holiday schedules and early closing of many outlets for the paper.

The Echo, which has a circulation of some 56,000, was due to be a single edition paper on Monday.

A decision was taken to abandon printing but many of the day’s stories were published online in a move which brought some readers their news.

There was also an extra eight-page pull-out the following day to bring football fans all the news and views after Cardiff City reached the top of the football league Championship at the weekend.

Editor Richard Williams said: “Unfortunately we suffered production problems which meant we couldn’t print our bank holiday special edition.

“However we made sure that our website was updated throughout the day, and on Tuesday we added a fantastic eight-page Top of the Table pull-out free inside the paper celebrating City’s win over Birmingham to go top of the Championship.”

Tuesday’s paper:
Front page apology and eight-page pull-out

The front page apology on Tuesday read: “The South Wales Echo suffered serious production problems yesterday which meant we could not print our bank holiday special edition.

“We apologise to everybody who missed out on their favourite paper.

“Today, to make up for disappointment for Bluebird fans, we have added a fantastic eight-page page Top of the Table pull-out free inside.”