Services to and from Bolton Wigan are being cancelled or delayed this morning amid an emergency incident
The train tracks at Wigan North Western(Image: Adam Vaughan)
Passengers are facing major disruption on trains to and from Bolton and Wigan amid an emergency incident.
Crews are currently responding to an incident on the tracks between Preston and Bolton/Wigan North Western this morning (Friday, June 19). According to National Rail, all lines are closed.
Services are being cancelled, delayed or revised. Trains operated by TransPennine Express, Northern and Avanti West Coast are affected.
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The major disruption is expected to last until at least 10am. National Rail said: “The emergency services are dealing with an incident between Preston and Bolton / Wigan North Western. Whilst they complete their work, all lines are closed.
“Trains between these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised. Major disruption is expected until 10:00.”
The British Transport Police has been contacted for a comment.
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Follow our live blog below for the latest updates on this incident.
Northern travel advice
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Train services are unable to run between Preston and Bolton (in both directions).
Services on the following routes will be affected by this disruption:
Between Barrow-in-Furness and Manchester Airport
Between Blackpool North and Manchester Airport
Between Liverpool Lime Street and Blackpool North
Between Windermere and Manchester Airport
Northern services on the following routes are not affected:
Between Blackpool North and Leeds/York
Between Liverpool Lime Street and Wigan North Western
Between Preston and Colne
Content cannot be displayed without consent
TransPennine Express services affected
TPE services which run on the line between Bolton and Preston are being affected by the issue.
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Content cannot be displayed without consent
Major disruption expected until at least 10am
The major disruption on lines between Bolton/Wigan North Western and Preston is expected to last until at least 10am.
Trains are being cancelled, delayed or revised.
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National Rail statement
National Rail said:
“The emergency services are dealing with an incident between Preston and Bolton / Wigan North Western. Whilst they complete their work, all lines are closed. Trains between these stations may be cancelled, delayed by up to 60 minutes or revised. Major disruption is expected until 10:00.”
Death in Paradise star Ralf Little started his career in the BBC sitcom Royle Family back in the late 1990s.
The BBC sitcom remains popular with viewers over 20 years later.
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In 1998, the likes of Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson joined forces for The Royle Family, which was created by their on-screen daughter Caroline Aherne, who played Denise and Craig Cash, who starred as Denise’s fiance Dave.
Recently, Ralf Little shared a clip from his 2020 travel show with Ricky Tomlinson as the pair travelled the North of England together.
During their trip, the 46-year-old reflected on one scene they had together which left him less than impressed, reports the Express.
He said: “You opened these pork scratchings and rested them on your belly. You were eating them, I say this with the greatest respect, it was disgusting!”, reports the Express.
Ricky erupted with laughter as Ralf recounted the memorable scene, gleefully re-enacting the moment himself, adding: “I really think that’s when Jim Royle was truly born, just the grossness of him.”
People were quick to comment on the pair together on-screen once again, with many calling for either The Royle Family or their travel series to return.
One person said: “Absolutley LOVED that scene. Wished The Royal Family returned.” Someone else wrote: “Just watched your tour of the north again with my parents, we loved it! Hope you and Rick do something together again soon.”
Another commented: “Absolute quality…… The Royal Family…. They don’t make them like that any more.”
One person added: “One of the best tv series ever made, pitch perfect in every way.”
While another shared: “Just watched The Royle Family for the first time. What a timeless classic! Comedy at its finest!”
Ricky & Ralf’s Very Northern Road Trip is available to watch on Channel 4.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Republican leader of the Indiana Senate announced Friday that he would give up his position after six GOP incumbents who opposed President Donald Trump on his congressional redistricting push in the state lost their primaries.
Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray drew the ire of Trump in December when he voted against the redistricting plan after saying for weeks that it didn’t have enough support to pass. The rejection came after intense lobbying from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, national conservative groups and others.
Bray, who has held his leadership position since 2018, said in a statement Friday that he would not seek reelection to the post when Senate Republicans choose their leaders in November. His current Senate term runs through 2028 and he will remain in office, albeit not as the Republican Senate leader.
Trump reacted to the news in a social media post by saying Bray had “foolishly led,” the state Senate, noting the May primary defeats of those who defied him on the redistricting plan.
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Bray did not mention Trump or the redistricting fight in his statement announcing his position to step down from the leadership position. Bray said holding the job “has been among the most significant honors of my life, but it’s time for the Senate to choose another leader.”
It’s not particularly fun to tell people you had an eating disorder. There’s not a cultural framework for talking about them, and societal perceptions of them are often very outdated.
Saying ‘yeah I had an eating disorder’ in polite company, even around people you might know well enough to not be weird about it, usually produces the same physical response as saying something like ‘yeah I used to train puppies for dog fights’ or ‘I funded my degree by selling my underwear to old men on the internet.’ Not quite disgust, not quite pity, more a sort of embarrassment that you’d bring up something so unsavoury. Mentioning eating disorders forces people to confront both shame and bodily fluids, and we hate that.
I couldn’t tell you when I first actually made myself sick, I have never been a particularly consistent diarist. But I can tell you the thought process that led to it started in early 2012. I was 16, I’d just been to Australia with my family over Christmas to visit family and while we were there, I came down with a very bad case of food poisoning.
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I couldn’t keep any food or water down for the best part of a week, and when I got back after the school holidays, gaunt and sallow from having to stay inside and not eat, people would not stop telling me how good I looked.
I had been a very chubby kid, and I could still feel that in high school, both on my body and reputation. Even though I look back at photos of myself from that time and I can see that some of the puppy fat had started to drop a little bit, I still carried the literal and metaphorical weight of being one of the school’s fat kids around with me.
So, when people told me that I suddenly looked amazing, something switched in my brain. I knew that I’d been sick every day for a week, and that had produced results, so I just carried on. It’s obviously a sign of an unwell mind to associate something harmful with success, but that’s the way my brain worked at the time.
Born in the late 90s, I’m technically the youngest it’s possible to be and still be a millennial, and while I’m of the opinion that terms like ‘Millennial’ and ‘Gen Z’ are generally shorthand for older right wing journalists to call young people annoying and stupid, there is something to be said for the Millennial-Gen Z cusp adults who were children in the 2000s and teens in the 2010s.
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What this means is that we were children for the explosion of diet culture propaganda of the 2000s, teenagers for the sharp pivot into body positivity of the 2010s, and now young adults as we slip into the uncanny valley territory of the GLP-1 era. It’s a lot of twists and turns for one mind to handle. You have to be thin, but even if you’re not thin you have to love yourself exactly as you are as you desperately try to attain thinness.
This isn’t the sole reason I ended up in Eating Disorder therapy, but it’s fairly important cultural context.
Between the praise for losing weight and the constant pressures from all forms of visual media since time immemorial, I was desperate to keep getting smaller.
I stopped eating breakfast before school. I’d make excuses at lunch. At home I’d eat dinner with my family, then say I was going upstairs for a shower, and while the water was running I’d force two fingers down my throat to purge the dinner from my body. This was a pattern that continued for the best part of a decade, ebbing and flowing in its intensity – feeling like I was doing something positive, whilst my skin worsened, and my teeth loosened.
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It was the pandemic that eventually forced me to tell my family how bad things had gotten. Locked in close proximity, it was difficult to hide how unwell I was.
When I first started making myself sick, I genuinely didn’t know what I was doing was bad, it felt like a shortcut rather than self-harm. When I told my mother, she was very upset, as you would be if you found out your child had hated themselves to the point of ritualistically vomiting for a decade. She urged me to go to a doctor, and the doctor referred me to a specialist clinic.
As we know, the NHS is operating under a huge financial and physical strain, so I spent a long time on the waiting list to be seen for treatment. But eventually I was put into an Eating Disorder group therapy unit, with a Specialist Cognitive Behavioural Therapist.
An Eating Disorder group therapy unit is actually a lot funnier than you might expect. Gallows humour abounds. I felt a deep kinship with the women in the group. I was, however, the only man there.
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Statistically this tracks; 25% of those with Eating Disorders in the UK are men, but there’s an undeniable difference in the ways men and women are socialised to scrutinise their bodies. This is not a hard and fast rule, an eating disorder is not a single disease, nor are those suffering a monolith. It’s more about trying to control something in your life when you feel out of control in other ways.
This is certainly my experience as a man with an eating disorder. I’m not exactly the most masculine of men – sitting somewhere between Nathan Lane and Graham Norton on the catty homosexual scale – but I did go to an all-boys school, and have been socialised as a man.
It’s undeniable that a part of being raised as a boy involves competition, being tasked with being bigger, better, stronger. In this era of information delivered by extreme short form video, we’re served 45 second snippets of ‘protein’, ‘diet advice’, ‘weekly training splits’, personal trainers advising you how to hit shoulders and back with one simple exercise. When you’re gay you’re coupling that with your burgeoning sexuality, unsure whether you are attracted to men, or just want to look like them. You’re both object and objectifier when it comes to the male gaze.
I think for men it’s difficult to talk about, because of the misconception that eating disorders solely affect women. I don’t think this was true for me, but I certainly didn’t realise what I was doing to myself was an eating disorder for a long time because I thought an eating disorder was just starving yourself. This isn’t to say that in order to release men trapped in cycles of disordered eating is to pitch them against women suffering from comparable situations.
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It’s to interrogate why we feel the need to strive towards a goal that is unattainable. It’s not necessarily about body image, if you had asked me when I was in the throes of bulimia what I wanted to look like, the goal would have been nebulous. It’s always boiled down to ‘something else.’
I don’t think that you can ‘think yourself better,’ therapy takes a lot of work, practice, and challenges your preconceived notions about what kind of person you are. But at some point you also have to decide that you want to get better, and that you can. And part of that comes from accepting that you have a problem. If you think you might, tell someone, you never know what could happen. You could turn a corner, or, like me, you could end up doing a one man show about it in Edinburgh. Who’s to say?
Dom McGovern: Prize Hog will be performed at 8:30pm in Pleasance Courtyard from 5th-30th August at the Edinburgh Fringe
A24’s Anthony Bourdain film, Tony, is set to come out of 14 August in the UK.
But the biopic, starring Dominic Sassa as a young Tony, Antonio Banderas as his Chef, Emilia Jones as love interest Nancy, and Leo Woodall as fellow restaurant worker Sal, has already received verdicts from multiple critics.
“A 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain travels to Provincetown and stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that will shape the course of his life,” the movie’s synopsis reads.
Here’s what reviewers think so far:
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What do critics think of 2026’s Tony?
Reviews are generally good – it has already earned an outstanding 97% on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. But some critics think Nancy’s storyline is a bit thin, while others say the unavoidable shadow of Bourdain’s real-life suicide can’t help but colour the film for fans.
“This is a strange film in some ways. It is watchable and entertaining, but its feel-good trajectory is compromised by what we know of the author… In a way, Tony is the author, the narrator who just bleakly sees it all, but for a writer he sometimes doesn’t have much to say about the situation in which he finds himself.”
“[Director Matthew] Johnson recognises how this, at heart, is a coming-of-age story about a rising star who’s learning to be unburdened by a future that’s better than he could ever imagine – a kid who’s learning that no one can become the person they pretend to be without being the person they actually are along the way. Tony struggles for an ending, but it doesn’t really need one; the real fun here lies in paving the way to parts unknown.”
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“Sessa adds such depth and texture to his Caulfield riff that it feels ultimately unnecessary for Johnson to add any explicit reference to the darker, sadder shades of Bourdain’s psyche. It’s already there… The audience knows who Bourdain was and part of that was what a wonderful storyteller he was. And this is a wonderful story to tell.”
“It would be easy to write Tony off as something Bourdain would despise on principle. But after the documentary Roadrunner ended on such a bitter note, using an AI-generated version of Bourdain’s voice and pointing fingers over who was to blame for his suicide, Tony returns, refreshingly, to the beginning of his story.”
“[Its] central plot thread is like a blueprint for the behind-the-scenes access to restaurant life in Bourdain’s bestselling first book, Kitchen Confidential — hazardous, intense, messy and a magnet for misfits… The relatively weak link in the script is Nancy.”
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“As Tony’s troubled soul comes to the fore, acted out in ways both big and small, what’s revealed is that though he wants to be a writer, he believes in nothing. Tony is about how he finds himself by crawling out of himself. The kitchen wounds him, heals him, and becomes his crucible of faith.”
“Zeroing in on this one chequered summer in Bourdain’s life feels like an odd decision that Johnson and his co-writers (Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe) compound by giving us little to root for in their surly antihero. Even his redemptive moment rings hollow… Tony is a bland dish.”
“If a viewer doesn’t know Bourdain from Pepin, Tony plays as a highly entertaining, heart-tugging and fictional boy-to-man vacation flick, like The Way Way Back. For the food celeb’s fans, the movie still mostly does, even if, like coming across an old photograph from a breezier time, there is the unavoidable occasional pang of sadness.”
“Despite having a poorly realised love interest, Tony, as both a film and a character, has a lot to recommend [it]… In a lot of ways, the movie itself is a lot like the kitchen that Tony primarily takes place in. It’s crass, it’s loud, it’s messy, and yet, you end up with something profound, beautiful, and exciting on your plate.”
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“A hangout movie is perhaps the most fitting way for Bourdain to be brought to the screen. Though its ambitions never quite match its subject, it depicts a summer you’ll be hard-pressed not to be charmed by.”
Tony will be available in UK and Irish cinemas from August 14.
Tom Powell, who performs at weddings across the North East and beyond, has been nominated for the 2027 Wedding Industry Awards (TWIA).
Unlike many awards, the TWIA nominations are not decided by public votes.
Instead, suppliers are nominated by couples they have worked with, with winners judged on private, verified feedback from clients over the previous 12 months.
Tom said this made the recognition particularly meaningful.
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He said: “Knowing that someone went out of their way to nominate me, and that the results rely entirely on the real feedback of my past couples, means the absolute world.
“It’s a wonderful reminder that all the late nights and motorway miles are completely worth it.”
Teesside performer Tom Powell has been nominated for the 2027 Wedding Industry Awards. (Image: Tom Powell Music)
Over the years, Tom has appeared on BBC One alongside Robson Green, supported pop star Olly Murs and, alongside his wedding work, performs internationally as a guest entertainer on cruise ships.
“It’s been an incredible 15-year journey – I started out gigging locally around Teesside,” he said.
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“Now, alongside travelling across the North East and beyond for weddings each year, I also fly out internationally as a guest entertainer on cruise ships.
“The business itself has grown massively too. I started out as a solo guy with a guitar, and now Tom Powell Music has a network of amazing session musicians, allowing us to offer everything from solos, duos and trios right up to full live bands and DJ, sax and bongos experiences.”
Teesside performer Tom Powell has been nominated for the 2027 Wedding Industry Awards. (Image: Tom Powell Music)
Despite performing across the country and overseas, Tom says staying connected to his home region remains important.
After spending seven years living in London, he returned to Teesside in 2021 and regularly supports local organisations and community groups, including Yarm Wellness and CPAD Ingleby Barwick.
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Tom said: “Even with weddings, TV appearances and international cruise work, I’ll always keep my roots firmly in the local Teesside community.
“Honestly, seeing a care home resident’s face light up when you hit the high notes of a song from their youth is just as rewarding as playing to a packed wedding dance floor.
“It keeps you grounded and reminds you what music is actually all about.”
Teesside performer Tom Powell has been nominated for the 2027 Wedding Industry Awards. (Image: Tom Powell Music)
To celebrate the nomination, Tom is launching a competition giving couples the chance to win £200 off any booking in 2027 or 2028.
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Entries open on Saturday (August 1) and close at 2pm on Thursday, August 20.
Couples can enter via the Tom Powell Music Facebook and Instagram pages by following the account, liking the competition post, commenting on what they are celebrating and tagging three friends.
The quad drove at the car, causing damage, before the men dragged two men and a woman out of the vehicle and assaulted them.
The two men were taken to hospital with stab wounds to their abdomen and sides, but their injuries were deemed to be non-life threatening.
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Cleveland Police has today (July 31) confirmed that the victims have since been discharged from hospital. No arrests have been made at this time, the force said.
Police and paramedics were both called to the attack, with the Leeholme Road car park being taped off as a result.
A grainy image taken at the time showed several 999 crews parked outside.
A fourth man in the passenger seat of the car was not hurt in the incident.
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Earlier this week, police asked any witnesses or anyone who has not yet spoken with police to get in touch.
Anyone with footage of the incident, or the quad and e-bikes riding away, is asked to call 101 quoting reference number 148971.
WNBA star Brittney Griner has filed for divorce from her wife, Cherelle, after claiming that their marriage is ‘irretrievably broken.’
The Connecticut Sun star officially submitted the court documents in Fulton County on Thursday, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The filing revealed that the couple, who had been married since 2019, officially separated on July 24 following a breakdown in their relationship.
Griner, 35, is seeking ‘joint legal and physical custody’ of the couple’s two-year-old son, while also requesting an equitable division of all marital assets.
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The filing also says she ‘should be awarded her separate, nonmarital property, including but not limited to inherited property as well as premarital property.’
The split comes after the couple tied the knot back eight years ago. Cherelle stood by Griner’s side during her harrowing 2022 ordeal in Russia, where the basketball star was detained for nearly 10 months before being released in a prisoner swap.
WNBA star Brittney Griner filed for divorce from wife, Cherelle, after eight years of marriage
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Griner, 35, is seeking ‘joint legal and physical custody’ of the couple’s two-year-old son
Customs discovered a small container of cannabis oil, which Griner later attributed to a ‘mental lapse’ on her part while she was packing to leave the US.
At the time, Griner revealed she gave her wife Cherelle an ‘out’ in their relationship after she was handed a nine-year sentence.
‘When I got sentenced to nine years, I wrote her a letter,’ Griner told Megan Rapinoe in a conversation for The Cut.
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‘I’m a realist. I was just like, ‘Nine years is a long time, babe. I get it,’ basically giving her an out. I asked, ‘Can you still be my friend? Write me.’
‘She was like, ‘Don’t ever write anything like that again.’ She never wavered. When I finally got back she was so patient with me. There were so many times when I just wanted to be alone, and there were days when she couldn’t get me away from her.’
The incident happened at the onset of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Griner quickly became a significant trade chip in the geopolitical conflict.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison in a Russian penal colony, but was freed when the Biden Administration swapped arms dealer Viktor Bout for the WNBA star.
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Since her return, she has advocated for other Americans detained in Russia like former US Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
The update comes three years on from Griner’s harrowing experience in a Russian jail
Griner previously revealed she gave Cherelle an ‘out’ from their relationship when she was in a Russian prison – but her partner had stood by her side throughout the ordeal in 2022
The Biden Administration was able to negotiate their releases from Russia in 2024.
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Griner spent the first 12 seasons of her career with the Phoenix Mercury, winning a WNBA championship in 2014, before playing the 2025 season with the Atlanta Dream.
She joined the Connecticut Sun in free agency earlier this year.
ESPN reported that the deal is worth over $1 million – something made possible by the collective-bargaining agreement that provides higher salaries for WNBA players.
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WNBA star Brittney Griner files for divorce from wife Cherelle… three years after she fought to free her from Russian prison camp
The scheme will not allow mayors to give their residents tax rebates, despite calls to do so by some politicians
David Lynch, Eleanor Barlow, and Abbie Llewelyn, Press Association and Cait Findlay Content Editor
17:00, 31 Jul 2026
Andy Burnham has announced plans for England’s mayors to keep a share of taxes collected in their area. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is among the mayoral areas affected by the announcement on Friday (July 31).
The Prime Minister announced that regional mayors will be allowed to keep a slice of income tax and business rates to spend on their priorities, as part of his drive to push power out of Westminster. Mr Burnham described the proposals as “the biggest shift of power out of Whitehall and Westminster” to regions across the UK.
Speaking at a community centre in Sheffield, he said: “What brought me into politics was a determination to make sure, wherever you live in this country, the postcode where you live, or where you were born, doesn’t actually determine what your life should be like. That’s what I’m on a mission to change.
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“No kid here, born in any of these streets around here, should have a harder life or fewer life chances than anyone born anywhere else, and that’s what this is all about.”
The government has confirmed that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority has been designated an Established Mayoral Strategic Authority. This means the Combined Authority is now better placed to work on future devolution arrangements, including a ‘right to request’ greater devolution, a spokesperson said.
Mr Burnham directly rejected the idea of mayors giving their local taxpayers rebates, telling broadcasters in Sheffield: “Well, I don’t go down that path, as some people are saying today, because this is about growth and investment.
“Britain is lagging on this front in the G7 because we are not investing as much as other countries in industry, in infrastructure, in housing. This is a growth agenda and an investment agenda, not a cuts agenda, because the cuts agenda has left us in a difficult position.”
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He added: “We’re not going to repeat some of the mistakes of the past, the austerity of the past that then has left us with a low-investment, low-growth economy. This policy is designed to break that cycle.”#
Paul Bristow, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, said: “For years, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has helped drive growth for the whole country while seeing too little of that returned to our local communities. Today’s decision is the first step towards changing that.
“Being recognised as an Established Mayoral Strategic Authority puts us in a stronger position to secure new powers, greater funding flexibility and more control over the decisions that affect our region. The detail will matter, but if areas that create growth can keep more of the rewards, we can invest more in the transport, infrastructure, homes and skills our communities need.”
He continued: “Most importantly, residents should feel the benefits of growth. By keeping more of the wealth generated here, we can create more opportunity and help people live happier, healthier and wealthier lives.”
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Details of the reforms – including what proportion of taxes the local leaders will keep – are expected to be announced in a white paper, published when Chancellor John Healey presents his first budget in the autumn. The rate of income tax that billpayers face will not change as a direct result of the reforms, according to the Government.
Ministers will retain an equalisation system, so areas where less tax is collected continue to receive financial support.
The paper also said the Government will give regional mayors and authorities across England the power to introduce a tourist tax, which it suggested could be collected and spent from March 2028.
Differing boundaries between local government, health authorities, and police forces could meanwhile be streamlined to avoid confusion about which authority provides services to which area, the Cabinet statement said.
Martin Tod, Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of Hampshire and the Solent and Leader of Winchester City Council, has welcomed the Government’s plans to give elected mayors greater powers but warned that Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are being held back by the delay to the region’s mayoral election.
Eddie Howe sends emotional message to Newcastle fans as club confirms bombshell exit – and labels his five-year spell at St James’ Park a ‘privilege of my lifetime’
Eddie Howe has delivered an emotional farewell to Newcastle United supporters as the club confirmed his departure in a statement on Friday.
Howe, who established Newcastle as European regulars and won the 2025 Carabao Cup during his near five-year spell in charge at St James’ Park, came to an agreement to leave his role with immediate effect this week after contemplating his future over the summer.
The Englishman informed Newcastle of his wish to leave earlier this month but agreed to stay on until a replacement was found, with German coach Matthias Jaissle now stepping in to succeed him ahead of the new 2026-27 season.
As part of a statement shared by the club to their website on Friday, Howe described the opportunity as a ‘privilege of a lifetime’.
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‘After a period of personal reflection, I have decided that now is the right time for me to step away from my role as head coach of Newcastle United,’ he confirmed.
‘After nearly five years of giving my life, heart and soul into the club with unrelenting energy, I feel that it is in the best interests of both myself and the club to step away, recharge and take a break.
Eddie Howe delivered an emotional farewell statement to Newcastle United fans on Friday
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‘Although it’s been incredibly difficult to make this decision, I know in my heart that it’s the right one. I have always put the best interests of Newcastle before my own in every single decision I have made whilst I’ve been here and this one is no different.
‘It has been the privilege of my lifetime to have been the manager of Newcastle United.
‘It is difficult to put into words what this club, the city and its supporters mean, and will always mean, to me and my family. From the moment myself, Jason and all of the staff arrived nearly half a decade ago, Newcastle instantly felt like home and the people here welcomed us with open arms. We took huge pride in representing the club from day one and this city will always hold a very special place in our hearts.
‘There have been so many incredible moments in our time here. From fighting relegation in our first season to the numerous unforgettable nights at St. James’ Park in the Champions League soon after. The progression was fast.
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‘Everyone came together, united and what a force we became, culminating in bringing home our first domestic trophy in 70 years. These are all memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
‘I would like to put on record my sincere thanks and appreciation to Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Jamie Reuben, Jacobo Solís and everyone at PIF, David Hopkinson, Ross Wilson and the entire ownership and leadership group for placing their trust in me and for giving me the opportunity to lead this special football club.
‘I remain incredibly positive and enthusiastic about the future of Newcastle. The club is in fantastic hands with a great leadership team and I have no doubt together, alongside whoever comes in to replace me, they will continue to deliver success on the pitch.
‘Thank you to Jason Tindall, Graeme Jones, Stephen Purches, Simon Weatherstone, Dan Hodges, Andy Howe and Jordan Tribe for their incredible loyalty, support and dedication and to all of the amazing staff behind the scenes whose hard work and loyalty makes this club what it is.
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‘A special thank you to all of the players who have represented the club during my time here. Without you, nothing would have been possible and it’s been an honour to have coached you all.
‘Finally, and most importantly, thank you to our incredible supporters. Your passion and loyalty have inspired me every single day. To stand on the touchline at St. James’ Park as your manager with the honour of representing your club has meant more to me than you will ever know.
‘While my journey as manager has now come to an end, the affinity and love I will always hold for Newcastle United never will.
‘Thank you for everything. I wish the club every success for the future.’
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The timing of Howe’s departure has rocked Tyneside, even though it has not come as a surprise on the back of a turbulent 12 months.
After losing star striker Alexander Isak last September, England winger Anthony Gordon and Italy midfielder Sandro Tonali have been sold to Barcelona and Tottenham respectively this summer.
Arsenal have also today reached an agreement in principle to sign midfield leader Bruno Guimaraes for a fee that is understood to be worth £77million plus add-ons.
As revealed by Daily Mail Sport, Guimaraes dropped a bombshell on the Newcastle hierarchy several weeks ago by informing them of his desire to leave. And he did not fly with the rest of the Toon squad to their pre-season training camp in La Manga on Friday.
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