Remembering Maddy Cusack: A Legacy Beyond Football

On a quiet bench in a Derbyshire park, the fight to remember Maddy Cusack properly goes on.

The bench sits in Scargill Park in West Hallam, where she grew up. Her name is carved into it; flowers come and go. This is where her sister Olivia and cousin Emily Reilly return when the noise of legal process and unanswered questions becomes too much.

To them, she is not a case number or a line in a report. She is “our sunshine”, the big sister Olivia “looked up to my whole life”, the cousin who, as Emily laughs, “used to get us in trouble with my dad”.

Three years on from her death, they are still waiting to be told, officially, what happened.

An inquest on pause

Maddy, a midfielder for Sheffield United, was 27 when she was found unconscious at her home in Derbyshire on 20 September 2023. The inquest into her death finally opened in June this year and was expected to finish in July.

It did not.

After a little under two weeks of hearings, the coroner adjourned proceedings. The pause has stretched into months while Sheffield United searches for documents linked to her medical records. The process is not expected to resume until at least December.

For a family already worn down by delay, it is another blow.

“It is very emotional and you can find yourself frustrated at times,” Olivia tells BBC Newsbeat. “They’re very difficult days.” She describes the wait as “extremely overwhelming”.

The inquest had already been postponed twice before it even began. When it finally did, the focus fell heavily on the most painful parts of Maddy’s life.

Evidence included testimony from her mum, who told the court how Maddy had struggled with her mental health in the period before her death. The hearing also examined her relationship with Sheffield United coach Jonathan Morgan.

Morgan told the inquest he had “no concerns” about their relationship and insisted “things have not been portrayed factually or correctly with how she was feeling”.

As lawyers dissected those final months, Olivia sat and listened. What she heard left her with a different kind of ache.

‘More than the number on the back of her shirt’

While Maddy’s wellbeing and working relationships were analysed in detail, Olivia felt the person behind the footballer was slipping out of view.

“It dawned on me that when people were asked questions about Maddy and to share what she was like as a person, they were all very similar answers and quite focused on the football side of her,” she says.

“People don’t seem to know her like we did – of course they don’t. But I wanted to introduce a different side of Maddy.

“I wanted them to know more than the number on the back of her shirt or the colours that she wore on the football pitch.”

That other side lives strongest here, at the memorial bench, in the village where they all grew up.

Emily’s memories are full of mischief. “She used to get us in trouble with my dad when we were younger,” she says. “It was always her idea then I’d take the blame for it.”

The two cousins always planned to spend their birthdays together. Both fall at the end of October. That plan has changed, but the ritual remains.

“Now I just come here,” Emily says, looking at the bench.

Against the stark, clinical language of an inquest, these stories feel like an act of defiance. In a process dominated by “darker times”, as the family calls them, they are determined not to let the fun, chaotic, joyful parts of Maddy be erased.

Carrying on her story

Grief has not left much room for rest. Since Maddy’s death, Olivia and other family members have thrown themselves into campaigning in her name.

They have set up a foundation to support aspiring female footballers – a practical legacy for someone whose life revolved around the game.

“The foundation keeps me going,” Olivia says. “It’s been a real lifeline to be able to continue her story.”

That story is not just told in boardrooms or on social media. On Saturday, Olivia organised a walk from Bramall Lane, Sheffield United’s home, to near Derby, where Maddy lived. Almost 30 miles on foot, tracing a route between the club and the place she called home.

“The aim with the walk is just to do her proud,” Olivia explains. “Maddy would love that we were all challenging ourselves.”

The club itself has already been the subject of outside scrutiny. An external report ordered by Sheffield United shortly after her death cleared the club of wrongdoing. A separate Football Association report, commissioned in early 2024, will not be published until the inquest finally concludes.

So the official verdicts wait in a queue: the coroner’s findings, the FA’s report, the last word on a life lived at high speed and under pressure. The family can do nothing to accelerate that. What they can control is how often her name is spoken.

“She will only ever remain a part of this life if we keep saying her name and keep remembering her,” Olivia says.

“And as painful as that can be on days where you want to forget and you just want to stay in bed all day and not face the world, I try and make a conscious effort to keep saying her name and keep her living alongside us ultimately.”

The bench in Scargill Park is not a finish line. It is a starting point – for a foundation, for a march from Bramall Lane, for a family’s refusal to let a footballer be remembered only by a shirt number and a date on a court file.