Concerns raised about Jonathan Morgan prior to Maddy Cusack’s death, inquest told

• Former Sheffield United player Nina Wilson ‘tried to escalate concerns’

• Morgan to give evidence to inquest on Monday

The former Sheffield United goalkeeper Nina Wilson has told an inquest that she had “tried to escalate concerns” about the manager Jonathan Morgan prior to her teammate Maddy Cusack’s death in 2023, but she did not feel she was listened to.

Wilson, who told the hearing that she had ended her own football career when she was aged 25 because of those experiences, said that neither she nor Cusack had known who the club’s safeguarding officer was, and she listed a series of recommendations to the court, including calling for whistleblowing routes to be clearer to players and for mental health education to be a mandatory part of coaching qualification courses.

However, later in Friday’s hearing, another former Sheffield United player and Morgan’s former assistant coach Luke Turner told the court that they had never witnessed Morgan bullying Cusack or any other players personally. The former Leicester City, Burnley and Sheffield United manager Morgan, who will give evidence to the inquest on Monday, asked his former player Naomi Hartley if she had seen any bullying towards Cusack, and Hartley replied: “No, I just think a lot of people were intimidated by you.”

Chesterfield coroner’s court also heard evidence of how under-resourced staff felt at the second-tier club during the summer of 2023 as they transitioned from part-time to full-time status. The club’s women’s team doctor at the time, Dr Subhashis Basu, said they had been so stretched that at one stage Basu had to organise the booking of a pitch for training, collect “lunch for the players from Tesco” and even “store medication” in his house, having also referenced a frequent lack of access to private medical rooms for the women’s squad.

Dr Basu added: “It was an extremely challenging environment. We were routinely moving training facilities, struggling to find venues.”

Wilson, who played for an extensive list of clubs including Brighton and London City Lionesses, told the court the death of her friend Cusack, aged 27 on 20 September 2023, was “definitely preventable”. She labelled Cusack as “an exceptionally confident person, she was so funny, always bouncing around the changing room, checking in on other people”, but said she had noticed a “very stark change” in her demeanour from February 2023, when Morgan was appointed.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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