Olivia says the walk on Saturday, \u201cBringing Maddy Home\u201d, was motivated by some of the evidence during the inquest. \u201cAfter the inquest we wanted to bring her home from Bramall Lane, back to our family home,\u201d she says. \u201cMany people know Maddy as the professional football player and the name on the back of her shirt, the number, the colours she wore, the club she was associated with.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I felt in the inquest it was lost that she was a person, she wasn\u2019t an object that we were discussing. She\u2019s a person, she\u2019s a family member of ours [and] a person that\u2019s sometimes been lost within the chaos surrounding her death really, so that\u2019s the notion behind the walk. To claim her back, bring her home and protect her.\u201d<\/p>\n
A minute\u2019s applause will be held before kick-off on Sunday at the Women\u2019s Super League 2 fixture between Newcastle and Sheffield United. Discussing that anniversary, Olivia says: \u201cWe miss her the same every day, as I will on Sunday. The anniversary is always something that creeps up on us. It\u2019s very emotional and it\u2019s a time where we just reflect, but we do so much throughout the year so she really is at the heart of pretty much every single day. Not a day goes by where we don\u2019t think about her.<\/p>\n
Sheffield United and Maddy Cusack\u2019s family paid tribute at Bramall Lane shortly after her death. Photograph: Richard Callis\/MB Media\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be days when you just feel absolutely drained and you know you don\u2019t quite know what the right thing to do is, but I think the way that we just get through it is that we remember who she was as a person. She loved her life, she loved trying new things and just enjoying life\u2019s simple pleasures, we try and embody that on every day, not just the anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really do encourage people to, as difficult as it can be sometimes, share the photos, share the memories, bring her up in conversation wherever you can, talk about her, and between all of us, you know her legacy will live on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family have already endured eight full days of evidence, after the hearing began belatedly on 29 June, but the discovery of additional documents led the proceedings to be paused until December. The coroner apologised to the family for yet another delay. The case had been set previously to start being heard on 5 January 2026 after additional postponements in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really difficult,\u201d Olivia said of the delays. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that any of us anticipated to happen. It\u2019s very confusing and it can be very frustrating, the length of time it\u2019s taken, it can be difficult to work that out and to know how you should be feeling and the process of it. However, we know that for the right outcome it has to be taken seriously. They need the time to come together and really get an outcome.<\/p>\n
Maddy Cusack was also remembered during the Premier League match between Sheffield United and Newcastle. Photograph: George Wood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels as though she can\u2019t be at peace until it\u2019s finished. And I do feel that\u2019s quite upsetting to think about and to work through. It needs to come to a conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia said she would \u201cchannel Maddy\u2019s energy\u201d during the 29-mile walk on Saturday, when a group of about 15 family and friends travelled in the reverse direction to another fundraising walk in February 2024 from Pride Park to Bramall Lane.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Moving the Goalposts<\/p>\n No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women\u2019s football<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n This time they set off from Sheffield at 5.30am. A fundraising page <\/a>for the walk had surpassed \u00a31,100 as of Saturday afternoon. Olivia described that tally as \u201cincredible \u2013 \u00a31,000 is just amazing, it\u2019s more than I ever expected\u201d and said: \u201cParticularly with it being Maddy\u2019s anniversary, it\u2019s going to be very much a mental challenge as well as a physical one, so it gives you that extra motivation to make the people who\u2019ve donated proud.\u201d<\/p>\n The money is being raised for the Maddy Cusack Foundation, which is helping a range of causes targeting women\u2019s and girls\u2019 football and \u201cletting girls be seen within sport\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe provided Derby County Community Trust with a series of bursaries for girls and families who struggle with the financial prospects of becoming dedicated to their football. It\u2019s a helping hand for any child that needs that extra sort of funding, taking away the barriers that they might face.\u201d<\/p>\n The foundation has also partnered with the Stockport County left wing-back and former Derby, Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest player defender Ben Osborn\u2019s organisation Elite Football Development, which aims to inspire young people through sport and education.<\/p>\n \u201cThey work with girls and boys but we sponsor the girls\u2019 side of things, which is focused around post-16 study, and allows girls to gain qualifications alongside being able to train and live the life of a professional footballer. We were really keen to get involved in this as Maddy was really passionate about education.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans<\/a> can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline<\/a> on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org<\/a>, or text HOME<\/a> to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline<\/a> is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olivia Cusack says her sister, the late Maddy Cusack, is on her mind every single day and she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-899079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789921338_752_500.jpg\")
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