BLACKBURN Rovers are celebrating a major coup after their matchday programme has been voted one of the best in the Premiership.

Rovertime, which is produced by Blackburn-based company PAPR, won the award for best read in the 'Progamme Monthly and Football Collectables' annual awards.

And the 76-page glossy magazine was also judged to be the third best in the top-flight in terms of value for money.

Judges described the Rovers entry as 'a lovely little package' which had the 'added advantage of being able to fit in the pocket.'

Rovertime editor, Paul Agnew, was delighted to hear that Rovers had scooped the award and cited the programme's 'community feel' as one of the reasons why it came out top of the pile.

"A lot of clubs set their stall out to produce a first team magazine but we can't do that at Blackburn because we are a community-based club," said Agnew.

"So there might be a lot in it which doesn't apply to everyone but at the same time there's also something in it which appeals to everyone."

PAPR have been in charge of content in the programme for the last four years and Rovertime has also received a commendation during that period.

But it's the introduction of several features new to this season which may well have tipped the balance in this year's vote.

"We've introduced a few new things this season and they all seem to have gone down very well with the fans," said Agnew.

"A new section called Ewood Emales has proved particularly popular where we invite fans to submit questions via email to a different featured player every week.

"We've had responses from all over the world and there's been a big response from supporters via various websites.

"We've also introduced a question and answer session with the manager as opposed to the normal column you see in a lot of other programmes just to add that little bit of variety.

"And of course it helps that the number of pages has now been boosted to 76 compared with 52 when we first took it over.

"But we are not trying to compete with publications like the Telegraph.

"We don't try to be a newsbreaker. We have a relationship with the local media for that."

At the same time, though, Agnew and his staff pride themselves in working to the tightest possible deadlines in order to ensure the product is as fresh as possible on matchdays.

"We've pushed the deadlines back as far as I can ever remember in order to make it as up-to-date as possible," said Agnew.

"That allows us to get the very latest results and league tables in, which can make it a bit frantic at times but that's what people want."

Rovers and PAPR have tried to be as innovative as possible and their idea to produce an 'upside down' programme for the home leg of the UEFA Cup clash with Celtic earlier in the season was particularly striking.

'Programme Monthly and Football Collectables' is read by 3,000 collectors world-wide every month and they are now in their 23rd year of publication.

West Brom's programme was voted the best in the Premiership overall by the judges.