Sheffield United did not have sufficient resources in place during the summer of 2023 to look after their women\u2019s team players, their former physio has told an inquest into the death of Maddy Cusack.<\/p>\n
Cusack was found dead at her family\u2019s home in Derbyshire on 20 September 2023, at the age of 27, just weeks into United\u2019s first season since switching to training on a full-time basis. Francesca Carr, who worked as the women\u2019s team physio between 2021 and 2024, told the court that the club\u2019s transition from part-time to full-time status felt \u201crushed\u201d and staff were carrying out multiple roles beyond their remit, such as making lunch for the team.<\/p>\n
Carr said players \u201cprobably wouldn\u2019t have known where to go\u201d for any help from the club\u2019s HR team after a switch in their training venue, and she told the court that there were members of the squad whose mental wellbeing was causing her even more concern than Cusack\u2019s, prior to her death.<\/p>\n
The hearing had been scheduled to hear evidence from the Sheffield United chief executive, Stephen Bettis, on Wednesday but his session was rescheduled for 8 July after it took the court longer than anticipated to examine Carr\u2019s extensive evidence. Further staff members, past and present, from the club are scheduled to give evidence at the remainder of the inquest.<\/p>\n
Asked if it was fair to say there were \u201cinsufficient resources to properly run the club and look after the players\u201d while the club was transitioning to full-time status, Carr replied: \u201cIn my personal opinion, yes. We didn\u2019t have the luxury of having all the roles in place when the season started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carr also said Cusack was \u201con her radar\u201d during the summer after the midfielder had expressed worries to her about her house and about her girlfriend being \u201cfar away\u201d. Carr also said she had seen \u201ca sign\u201d when Cusack called her \u201cheartbroken that she had gone to the wrong training ground\u201d by mistake one day, saying: \u201cHer reaction was excessive. It wasn\u2019t a normal reaction.\u201d Carr said she subsequently mentioned her concerns about Cusack\u2019s wellbeing to her manager, Jonathan Morgan.<\/p>\n
The first two days of the inquest had heard evidence from Cusack\u2019s father<\/a>, David, and her girlfriend, the former Sheffield United player Grace Riglar<\/a>, both of whom had stated that Cusack had felt she had been unfairly left out of the starting team for Morgan\u2019s first match in charge in February 2023, but Carr confirmed several times on Wednesday that she had given advice, as the physio, to Morgan that Cusack was not fit to play in his first match in charge, concurring with Morgan\u2019s version of events.<\/p>\n Morgan, the former Leicester and Burnley manager, was announced as Sheffield United\u2019s manager on 14 February 2023 and took charge of the club for the first time against Crystal Palace on 26 February 2023. He is scheduled to give evidence to the inquest on Monday.<\/p>\n The Cusack family have blamed Morgan for the deterioration in Cusack\u2019s mental health but Carr said she \u201cnever saw an issue\u201d in Morgan\u2019s behaviour. She said of Morgan: \u201cWe had some very tough times during the transition from part-time to full-time. Mr Morgan pushed hard and made sure the girls were being fed when the club weren\u2019t providing food.\u201d<\/p>\n Carr also said she had written to senior members of staff at the club multiple times to express her concerns that the team were not meeting the minimum league requirements for standards \u2013 for example, by not having their own private physio room for treatment. She added: \u201cThings should have been in place beforehand and they weren\u2019t. Lots of things didn\u2019t feel like they were quite completed [ready for the 2023-24 season].\u201d She said she could not recall all the specifics but added: \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018we don\u2019t have a private medical room, that\u2019s one of the requirements\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Carr was asked about a statement she had submitted as evidence prior to the inquest which referenced \u201cplayers under the most pressure, who I thought might harm themself\u201d and she said: \u201cMaddy would not have been near the top of the list, for me. There were players who I was more concerned about from a mental health or a coping point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n The court also heard evidence from Cusack\u2019s former captain at United, Sophie Barker, who most recently played for Portsmouth. Barker, who was also Cusack\u2019s former roommate, said she believed Cusack\u2019s deterioration had been linked to worries about being able to afford her house and specifically about her girlfriend Riglar moving to play for Lewes.<\/p>\n Barker said of Cusack: \u201cShe loved Grace to bits. She felt Grace was leaving her. I had to reassure her quite a lot, that Grace was just moving [clubs], it didn\u2019t mean they were breaking up or anything like that. She was [also] really worried about affording her house. She was saying \u2018if I leave football, I\u2019m not going to be able to afford it\u2019. We spoke about solutions to that.\u201d<\/p>\n When questioned by Morgan, who is representing himself during the hearing, Barker was asked if she had ever seen him produce any negative behaviours towards Cusack. Barker said no and added: \u201cI can\u2019t recall a time where I\u2019d seen you shouting, I thought it was just a regular managerial thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The inquest continues on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sheffield United did not have sufficient resources in place during the summer of 2023 to look after their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-669037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}