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Plastic fantastic

AN EVENING newspaper has come up with an ingenious way to beat a League One football club’s ban on photographers, Sky reports.

Instead of real-life pictures of their team thumping Southampton, readers of the Swindon Advertiser were treated to Subbuteo recreations.

The newspaper resorted to the tiny plastic figures so Town fans could savour their team’s 3-0 drubbing of Saints on Wednesday night.

They were treated to five key moments of action from the game, which saw the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy holders go out of the competiton in the first round.

Sports writer Anthony Marshall said: “We were left unable to print images of the match unless we paid Southampton for their own copies.

“But, along with almost every paper - regional and national - across the country, we boycotted that idea and decided to come up with something original and innovative instead.”

That is where the Subbuteo models came in.

The Swindon Advertiser is not the only newspaper to find a novel way of beating Southampton at their own game.

One in Plymouth commissioned a series of Roy Of The Rovers-style cartoons while another in Bournemouth Echo reprinted black and white photos from the 1920s.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .