Maddy Cusack Inquest Reveals Coach's Mind Games and Impact on Player

The pressure points in Maddy Cusack’s final months are beginning to emerge in stark detail.

At Chesterfield Coroner’s Court, teammates and those closest to the former Sheffield United midfielder described a young woman unsettled by a manager she believed was “playing mind games” with her, and bruised by comments about her personality, weight and private life.

Cusack, 27, was found unconscious by her father, David, at the family home in Horsley, Derbyshire, on 20 September 2023. She died later that day.

‘Psycho’ from the touchline

Central to Tuesday’s evidence was the role of Jonathan Morgan, then manager of Sheffield United’s women’s team and previously Cusack’s coach at Leicester City.

Grace Riglar, a teammate at United and Cusack’s partner, told the inquest that Cusack had been “anxious” about Morgan’s arrival at Bramall Lane because of their history at Leicester. That anxiety, she said, went back to a moment on the pitch.

“I think she said that they played a game against a team while Jonathan was the manager. She had done something on the pitch and Jonathan called her a psycho from the sideline,” Riglar told the court.

Cusack did not broadcast how deeply that cut, Riglar explained, but it lingered.

“I don't think she let anyone know those types of comments affected her, but they did and they made her uncomfortable.”

From first name on the teamsheet to the bench

On the field, the pattern changed. A player used to starting, an established figure in the side, suddenly found herself drifting in and out of the XI.

“She was used to starting every game, she was an important member of the team,” Riglar said. “When Jonathan came, she was in and out from the starting team a bit.

“Her going from starting, to being on the bench quite a lot... she saw that as a setback. That impacted her a lot.”

The shift felt targeted to Cusack, Riglar added. Being picked one week and dropped the next did not look like rotation to her. It looked like a message.

“I just think she almost felt like it was a bit of a personal attack, and that Jonathan was playing mind games with her by starting her one week and dropping her the next.”

Relationship dragged into the open

The scrutiny, Riglar suggested, went beyond tactics and selection.

When Morgan joined Sheffield United, he addressed the dressing room with a clear instruction: if any players were in a relationship within the team, he wanted to know.

For Cusack and Riglar, who were determined to keep their relationship professional inside the football environment, that directive immediately set a tone.

Riglar told the inquest that Morgan would refer to her as “Mrs Cusack” in front of other players.

“She found it uncomfortable when Jonathan would call me ‘Mrs Cusack’, especially in front of other players,” Riglar said. “We wanted to keep our relationship very professional. The football side and relationship side were very separate.”

What they had tried to separate, she suggested, was being pulled into the centre of the group dynamic.

Comments about weight and a change in habits

The court also heard that Morgan made a comment about Cusack’s weight, prompting a marked change in her behaviour away from the training ground.

Riglar said Cusack altered her diet and exercise routine, cutting out carbohydrates, skipping breakfast and going for extra runs after training sessions, despite already being one of the squad’s standout athletes.

“She was one of the fittest players on the team anyway,” Riglar told the coroner.

Those around her began to notice a different kind of strain. Not the physical toll of elite football, but a creeping mental fatigue.

She described Cusack as becoming “paranoid” at the start of the new season.

“She didn't really have anyone she could speak to without it getting back to Jonathan,” Riglar said, painting a picture of a player who felt increasingly isolated inside her own club.

Looking for a way out

Away from the pitch, the inquest heard, Cusack had been signed off by a doctor from both her part-time playing commitments and her full-time marketing role at Sheffield United.

The dual workload had been a defining feature of her career: a midfielder who not only represented the club on the field but also worked for it off it. By the final weeks of her life, she was seeking something entirely different.

Cusack had told Riglar she wanted to move to Dubai and become a flight attendant, the court heard. She had been searching online for new jobs, exploring a future far from the English game and the environment that had once been her dream.

Those plans, like her career, now sit in the background as the inquest continues to examine the pressures, decisions and dressing-room dynamics that framed the final chapter of Maddy Cusack’s life.