I’m happy to admit that I’m a fan of Manchester’s free commuter newspaper, Metro.

I can whizz through the sport, listings, previews and news (in that particular order) in less than the time it takes me to get to work, then leave it for the next bored commuter to read.

Today, for example, I picked up an already-thumbed copy, absorbed what I needed and put it back down. I then watched as one person, then another, read the same copy. That’s at least four readers - and who knows how many more will read that copy today? It’s a mysophobiac’s worst nightmare.

Always one step ahead, London has its own Metro but also three other free commuter titles: financial paper City AM, which is one-year-old, Associated Newspapers’ London Lite and News International’s curiously uncapped thelondonpaper.

The latter two both launched this month amid intense media debate.

These papers theoretically operate using revenue from advertising but, given the intense competition, are probably loss-making for now at least. The respective publishers, The Times says, are committed to “a fight to the finish”.

Back in Manchester, 60,000 copies of the Evening News’ City Edition are now given away from lunchtime each day. With Associated Newspapers’ Metro being a morning paper, the two freesheets aren’t technically competing with each other.

But when the dust settles down in the capital, who’s to say upwardly-mobile Manchester won’t be the next battlefield?