Overseas football supporters have heeded a regional daily’s call to back the newspaper financially during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Yorkshire Evening Post has urged Leeds United’s worldwide fanbase to subscribe to the paper or its smartphone app, with supporters from as far afield as Ireland and Norway so far responding to the call.

The call for subscribers had been made by the YEP’s chief football writer Graham Smyth in a piece published lst week.

Since then the YEP has also marked the death of legendary United player Norman Hunter from COVID-19, with the first five pages of Saturday’s edition, pictured below, devoted to the tough-tackling defender’s passing.

In his piece on Thursday, Graham wrote: “Colleagues in our company [JPIMedia] have been furloughed and every single one of us has taken a pay cut. We’re still here, though.

“There might not be any live football to report on but our sports reporters are still hard at work, recording every event of consequence for Leeds United, keeping players in touch with the fanbase through webcam interviews and bringing the glorious and not-so-glorious past back to life.

“We have opened up our pages to the ‘rank and file’, allowing Leeds supporters to tell their own LS11 love stories. And when there is any news from the game’s authorities to pore over, you can find it in the YEP.

“Our news reporters are doing an even more crucial job, keeping a city informed of exactly what they need to know in what is, at the very least, an uncertain and troubling time.

“They are telling the story of a city going through pain and hardship, recording for posterity the ways in which the people of Leeds stuck together and helped each other through, highlighting acts of generosity and ensuring that deserving locals get the recognition they deserve.

“They will also tell tales of unspeakable sadness and loss. To do it and to do it properly, we need your help. If you value anything at all about our coverage, of Leeds United or city life in general, and if you can afford it, please subscribe.

“In recent days we have had Whites here at home, from Ireland and from Norway take out a subscription and every one of them is a valued contribution towards the journalism we want and need to do.”

You can read all our coronavirus-related stories here.