Sheffield United midfielder Maddy Cusack has died at the age of 27, the club have announced.
Cusack, named vice-captain last month, had just started her sixth season with the Blades in the Women’s Championship and was the longest-serving player in their current squad.
A statement on the club’s official website read: “Sheffield United Football Club is devastated to report the sad news of the passing of Maddy Cusack.
“Maddy, a women’s team player since 2019 and marketing executive for the Football Club, passed away on Wednesday.
“A respected player, Maddy, 27, last season reached the milestone of 100 appearances for Sheffield United Women.
“Additionally, she was a valued colleague in the offices at Bramall Lane, moving over from the Sheffield United Community Foundation to the club in 2021 to help market all areas of the Blades.”
Cusack joined the Blades halfway through their first campaign in the women’s second tier in January 2019 and last season became the first woman to reach 100 appearances for the club.
The former England youth international signed a new contract extension with the Blades in July.
United’s chief executive officer Stephen Bettis said: “This is heart-breaking news for everyone at Bramall Lane.
READ MORE: Beale praises Rangers youngster Rice as he makes 'madhouse' statement
“Maddy had a unique position of being part of a number of teams at Sheffield United and was popular with everyone that she came into contact with.
“Her personality and professionalism made her a credit to her family – she will be sadly missed.
“While taking in the news and moving forward, the club will offer as much support as possible to Maddy’s family, friends and colleagues.”
The Blades said talks over “suitable tributes and celebrating Maddy’s life” will continue privately, adding: “The club and Maddy’s family would appreciate a period of privacy and will not comment further at this sad time.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here