The 2024/25 Premier League campaign may now have closed for the summer, but football fans up and down the country continue to reflect on the season that we have just seen and the stories, and moments of magic, that have been created and Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe figures quite highly in that.
It has been a good season for the Magpie’s on a domestic front, and with solid results across the campaign they booked their place at Wembley Stadium back in March for the League Cup Final, and in coming out as 2-1 victors over Liverpool, they lifted their first major trophy in decades in the process.
Boosted by that win their chase for the Champions League spots and a return to European competition continued, and despite a final day defeat to Everton, they secured fifth place in the table to mark an excellent season.
Having lifted the Cup to end their 70 year wait for major success, Howe was subsequently nominated for the Council’s Freedom of the City award, and it has now been confirmed that councillors have voted to approve the motion to give the 47 year old the highest civic honour that the city can present to an individual. Howe will now officially join a storied list of historical individuals who had previously been given the award, including Sir Bobby Robson, Alan Shearer and Jackie Milburn.
Having been first nominated by Council leader Karen Kilgour, she said of the confirmation.
“That special day at Wembley gifted Geordies something they hadn’t seen in 70 years – domestic trophy success. For a city that lives and breathes sport, with a football club around which so many lives revolve, the wait to see black and white shirts lift a trophy at the home of football had long felt it would go on forever.”
With hundreds of thousands lining the Newcastle streets for their end of March open top bus trophy parade, a further event staged on the Town Moor, and additional celebrations once the Champions League qualification was assured, it is fully understandable as to why there is such a ‘feel good’ feeling amongst Geordies right now.
Details of the ceremonial presentation event where Howe will be presented with a scroll and will see his named carved into the Civic Centre’s Banqueting Hall’s sandstone wall, will be announced in due course, but it is not the first time that Howe has received such an honour during his managerial career so far.
Whilst manager of Bournemouth back in 2019 he was granted the Freedom of the Borough for the part he played in seeing the Cherries rise from League Two and into the Premier League, and he will certainly cherish this honour just as much.