Few regional newspapers have the chance for a double celebration with two football clubs in their patch getting promotion.

But that’s just what happened for the Bristol Evening Post as first Bristol City won automatic promotion from League One and then Bristol Rovers won the League Two play-offs.

And while the Evening Post produced special editions to mark the clubs’ achievements, it was also on hand to organise the triumphant celebrations that followed.

Bristol City clinched promotion with a 3-1 victory over Rotherham United on the final day of the league season.

The Bank Holiday edition of the Post that followed featured coverage on the first seven news pages, and detailed coverage in the Green Un sports supplement, featuring reaction to the win and the celebrations that followed.

Thanks to the Evening Post, the City players and staff were treated to a cruise on The Matthew, a replica of the ship on which John Cabot sailed to America more than 500 years ago, followed by an open-top bus tour and a civic reception.

The Bank Holiday edition sold out and was followed by a 12-page supplement in Tuesday’s paper and 40-page stand-alone, which went on sale on Thursday May 10 with a cover price of 50p. This included a month-by-month analysis of City’s season.

The original 20,000 print-run sold out and a further 5,000 were printed.

Then after an astonishing end to their League Two campaign, which saw Rovers win six and draw two of their final eight games, followed by a semi-final victory over Lincoln City, Rovers fans were off to Wembley.

The Post was packed with news and sports stories in the run up to the game against Shrewsbury Town and five reporters and three photographers joined fans in what turned out to be a triumphant day in London.

In Monday’s paper – again a Bank Holiday – six news pages and five sports pages were given over to reports on the day and again the paper sold out.

This time the Post organised a Bank Holiday celebration bus tour from East Bristol into the city centre, where the squad were greeted by Bristol’s Lord Mayor and council leader – and thousands of fans.

The celebrations, plus extra material from Wembley, saw a further eight pages in Tuesday’s paper. And this Friday, 40-page stand-alone on Rovers’ season was published, with 17,000 copies printed initially.

Early figures show that the football-led editions added around 15,000 to sales.

Editor Mike Norton said: “We’ve been delighted to help our football clubs celebrate their achievements this season.

“A lot of planning had to go on in advance before both clubs’ promotions were confirmed and on both occasions the promotion-winning games were on Saturday afternoons.

“We used our website to give full details of our celebration plans to fans and there was a fantastic response from the supporters of both teams.

“Our news and sports teams did a fantastic job in producing the special editions.”

Bristol football hasn’t known anything like it since the 1989/90 season when Rovers won the old Division Three championship – and City were runners-up.

Yet it was all still a long way off in March, when Rovers got to the final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy – by beating rivals City in the two-legged Southern Area Final.

Rovers lost to Doncaster Rovers in the final, but the Post produced a successful special edition that was sold outside the Millennium Stadium to cater for the 36,000 Rovers fans travelling on the day. And despite the defeat, a 12-page supplement plus regular news and sport articles also proved a hit with readers on the Monday.