A regional daily football reporter has thanked fans for their goodwill messages after it emerged that his job is to be axed as part of cutbacks.

Publisher Reach has announced the loss of 450 roles – incuding 320 editorial posts – with full details of where the cuts will fall set to be announced later this week.

But it has already emerged that one of those leaving will be Steven Chicken, Huddersfield Town reporter at daily newspaper The Examiner and sister website Yorkshire Live.

It means that there will no longer be a dedicated reporter covering the Championship club, which competed in the Premier League as recently as 2019.

Steven Chicken who is leaving his role as Huddersfield Town reporter for the Examiner and Yorkshire Live.

The news was first revealed by journalist-turned-PR man Rob Stewart who previously wrote a book about Huddersfield Town’s Premier League adventure.

He wrote: “I’m afraid it’s game over for the Examiner on the Town front.  Due to the huge cutbacks which parent company Reach announced this week, the Examiner will no longer have a reporter following Terriers as they are getting rid of the post currently occupied by Steven Chicken.

“It brings to an end a proud tradition that the Examiner had that meant, no matter how badly Town were doing, the reporting was always top notch.

“That was thanks to the likes of – in my time anyway – Paul Clark, Mel Booth, Darren Thwaites and Doug Thomson but lots more ace journalists (and photographers such as Julian Hughes and Andy Catchpool) who were easily goo enough to star at national newspapers but stayed loyal to our club.”

After a fan reposted the message on X, formerly Twitter, Steven then responded: “Thanks to everyone for their nice tweets and messages – genuinely really appreciate it.”

Last week’s announcement was the third major round of cutbacks to be announced at Reach this year, following the loss of 102 editorial roles in January and a further 192 roles in March.

So far Reach has only confirmed that some of its smaller websites will be closing and that its Bristol office will be replaced by an “editorial meeting space.”

HTFP understands that among the sites facing closure including Wiltshire Live, Dorset Live, Staffordshire Live, Bedfordshire Live, Norfolk Live and Suffolk Live.