THE FIRST round of the the Johnstone's Paint Trophy takes place on Soccer AM this morning.

To celebrate its fourth season of sponsorship, the Johnstone's Paint Trophy has also unveiled an action packed new website in time to kick off the new season.

The new website offers fans the "ultimate coverage" experience, from exclusive news, manager interviews and team awards, to goal footage from each round of games with opportunities to win sought after prizes.

Fans can also access the match centre zone to view live statistics, listen to text commentary and monitor results via the match centre scoreboard.

The website is designed to engage with more supporters than ever before through a variety of means, including surveys, polls, and competitions, as well as keeping fans abreast of all the daily on-goings, via twitter and facebook social networking websites.

What's more, the site now has an enhanced photo gallery, which includes images and video clips from past and present Johnstone's Paint Trophy competitions and events. In addition, the site contains a community section to showcase the community-led activities carried out during the season such as projects with local schools and community makeovers.

And finally, to offer fans a personal touch, there is the option to select individual team colours, which are then displayed on each click and reappears every time fans return to the site.

Johnstone's Paint Trophy Sponsorship Co-ordinator Sally Binns said:

 "We wanted to revolutionise the website by injecting colour and life into one of the most vital communication tools, allowing us to engage with more and more fans and followers of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

"We spent a great deal of time working on this site with fans and we think it has kicked off the new season perfectly for us. We now look forward to engaging with more and more fans as they sign up to the site!"

To visit the new website go to www.johnstonespainttrophy.com