Newcastle United duo win prestigious award after incredible year for £60m star

Newcastle United pair Alexander Isak and Elysia Boddy have won the North East Football Writers’ Association senior men’s and young women’s player of the year awards.

The awards will be presented at the Ramside Hall Hotel on Sunday March 2 which will also feature the presentation of the Sir Bobby Robson Foundation/NEFWA personality of the year award which has been won in the past by the likes of Alan Shearer, Chris Kamara, Jill Scott and current holder Gary Bennett.

Funds will be raised for Sir Bobby’s foundation on the night when the Bob Cass and John Fotheringham awards will also be presented for ‘outstanding services to North East football’ to two unsuspecting recipients.

Sweden international Isak is the 45th winner of the senior men’s awards and the unanimous choice of the region’s football writers, ahead of Newcastle team-mate Anthony Gordon in second and Middlesbrough’s Emmanuel Latte Lath in third.

He succeeds team-mate Kieran Trippier and is the fourth Newcastle player in a row to win the award since Middlesbrough captain Jonny Howson picked it up in 2020. Isak has been prolific for Eddie Howe since becoming Newcastle’s club record £60million signing from Real Sociedad in summer 2022, scoring 44 Premier League goals so far and in total scored 28 goals in the calendar year.

Twenty-year-old Newcastle United midfielder Elysia Boddy played a major part in Becky Langley’s side’s promotion to the Women’s Championship last season when she also earned his first England Under-23 cap. Teesside-born Boddy started playing boys' football with Marton at the age of four before moving into the girls' game with Teesside Girls RTC (Regional Talent Club) and then Middlesbrough Women at the age of 16.

She moved to Leicester Women, where she made her Women's Super League debut just a few weeks after her 18th birthday before she joined Bristol City Women and then moving to Newcastle in summer 2023, helping the club to promotion to the championship last season. Boddy becomes the second winner of the women’s young player award, following Sunderland’s Katy Watson who was the inaugural winner last year.

Tickets for the North East Football Writers’ Association annual dinner at the Ramside Hall Hotel and Spa in Durham are available from [email protected]