A football reporter who made his name reporting on Newcastle United for a regional daily has been banned by the club.

Luke Edwards covered the St James’ Park club for Newcastle daily The Journal before landing a job as North-East football reporter for the Daily Telegraph.

Now both Luke and the Telegraph have been banned from attending matches and press conferences after he revealed a dressing room split.

Luke disclosed in a story on Tuesday that the club’s struggle for Premier League survival has been undermined by acrimony between different groups of players at the club.

The Telegraph said the story, published in the wake of a 6-0 thrashing by Liverpool last weekend, had been written on the basis of verbal and written accounts of the split provided by several sources, including individuals employed by the club.

But Newcastle reacted by sending the paper a solicitor’s letter demanding the story be taken down from its website and that a public apology be issued.

The letter, from London-based solicitors Russell-Cooke, said: “Having carefully considered the content of the article Newcastle United have asked for it to be made clear that unless a full apology is received from the Daily Telegraph and the article is immediately withdrawn from the Telegraph online edition, then both Luke Edwards and any representative of the Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph will be banned from attending St James’ Park and from attending any Newcastle United pre-match press conferences and all Newcastle United player interviews at the training facilities with immediate effect.”

The Telegraph said in a report on the decision:  “We regret the club’s decision to ban the Telegraph from attending matches and press conferences, but will not allow it to prevent us providing the most incisive, trustworthy Newcastle coverage, rather than pandering to what the club want you to read.”

Luke wrote on his Twitter feed:  “I’ve been covering Newcastle for 12 years now. My sources are 100pc trusted and reliable.”

Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher himself Tweeted that there would be no apology and that the story was not being removed, adding:  “We will find a way of covering them quite easily.”