Big Brother fever hit many of the nationals at the weekend as the series drew to a close – and The Sentinel was keen not to miss out, as housemates Sam and Amanda are from the paper’s patch.

The Stoke-based newspaper has supported local twins Sam and Amanda Marchant, who are from Newcastle-under-Lyme, since day one, and sent a reporter and a photographer down to the final in London.

The twins had been late favourites to win the series, and The Sentinel held back its print deadline to ensure the result was in its early-bird Saturday edition.

A skeleton splash had been written, which was quickly updated when it was announced that the twins had been pipped to the post by Brian Belo, and the result and snippets from the interview with Davina McCall made Saturday’s front page (below).

Another reporter and photographer also spent the evening with the twins’ family and friends cheering them on back home, with a colour piece making Saturday’s first edition, and news from the press conference held in the early hours of Saturday morning was included in the second edition.

Sentinel deputy news editor Rob Andrews said: “To the best of our knowledge only two newspapers in our area carried the result on Saturday – the Daily Star and The Sentinel.”

He added: “The family has been good to us and we are in contact with the twins’ mum all the time.

“We have invited the twins to the Sentinel Heroes night later this month, which celebrates the great and the good in the area and which a number of celebrities attend, and we are now waiting for their reply.”

Throughout the twins’ time in the house the paper has run a daily blog, written by a local journalism student, and also got behind the twins by producing t-shirts, mugs and posters.

A reporting team also attended the eviction night when Amanda and Sam faced the public vote alongside Amy, Jonty and Kara-Louise, and Monday’s Sentinel looked at what the future holds for the twins, with predictions from celebrity agents that they could still make millions.