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It’s been a period when, amid unspeakable loss, we have been reminded of the way football comes together to embrace those who are suffering.
Diogo Jota’s death was a source of such grief, yet Liverpool staff, many of whom had come to know the Portuguese forward so well, exercised such subtlety and class in the way that they commemorated him and communicated the sense of loss to the wider world.
Retiring Jota’s No 20 jersey across all levels of that club – first team, youth teams, women’s team – has been a part of what will be a long and lasting remembrance. It is a gesture which has become football’s way.
Familiar within our shores since Manchester City decided that No 23, Marc-Vivien Foe’s jersey, would never be worn again, after their much-loved player collapsed and died on the field where he was playing for Cameroon in a Confederations Cup semi-final, 22 years ago.
You won’t have heard of some of the other players afforded the same tribute - most of them young, and taken far too soon – but they are commemorated in posterity because of football.
Richard Butcher, who was 29 when a heart condition took his life, is never forgotten at Macclesfield Town, where his No 21 jersey was retired. Neither, at Rochdale, is Joe Thompson, a beloved servant who lost his life to a rare form of cancer aged 36 this year. No one else will wear the No 15 jersey for the Dale.
Marc-Vivien Foe, who died on the pitch while playing for Cameroon in 2003. His No 23 jersey has never been worn by a Manchester City player since, as a mark of lasting respect
Joe Thompson died of cancer at the age of 36 this year. No Rochdale player will ever wear his No 15 jersey again
AFC Rushden and Diamonds sought special dispensation to retire the No 1 jersey after the loss of goalkeeper Dale Roberts, who took his own life. At Hartlepool United, the No 25 shirt will always belong to Michael Maidens, killed in a road traffic accident aged 20.
The same goes for Ray Jones, a QPR No 31, Matija Sarkic, Millwall’s No 20, Mark Philo, Wycombe Wanderers’ No 14. I’ve counted at least 14 players who are remembered this way at British sides, with more than 100 world-wide.
All of which renders more extraordinary the difficulty Sheffield United seem to be having in undertaking that very same understated act of remembrance.
More than 1,200 fans have signed a petition asking for the No 8 shirt worn by women’s team midfielder Maddy Cusack, who took her own life two years ago last weekend at the age of 27, to be permanently retired. The club’s Fan Advisory Board (FAB) have twice proposed it.
There’s no request that the gesture be extended across all of the club's representatives, no suggestion it should be taken off Gustavo Hamer, who wears 8 for the men's team – just in the side which Cusack served so indefatigably as the vice-captain and longest-serving player.
Yet the club have refused, in a manner which runs against the very grain of the modern game’s apparent wish to embrace its own. And the Cusack family were left to discover their decision through FAB minutes, spotted by a friend on the club website and via a published press release.
That family, you see, have had the temerity to challenge the manager’s treatment of their daughter in the last seven months of her life, which coincided with his appointment as women’s team boss. Their seven-page, 3,350-word complaint painted the picture of an alleged malign and debilitating culture under Jonathan Morgan, borne out by evidence from some team-mates read out at a pre-inquest review into her case three months ago.
An inquiry subsequently commissioned by Sheffield United contained basic factual errors and absolved Morgan of any responsibility, so the family pushed the FA into opening an investigation, the findings of which are expected to be a significant part of the full inquest hearing which begins in January. Morgan, who no longer has a role in football having been sacked by the club in February 2024, denies any wrongdoing and says he has been the victim of a ‘witch hunt.’
A banner raised in remembrance of Maddy Cusack at Sheffield United's match against Charlton Athletic on Saturday. Her image was also shown on the stadium screen
Cusack's family, including her mother (second right) and sister (second left), have been denied the tribute of her number being retired by Sheffield United's women's team
Whatever the outcome of that inquest, you would rather hope that the club might be capable of demonstrating, in the here and now, that it has searched its soul about the death of Cusack – the player who would be on hand to meet new recruits in the car park and take them on tours of Sheffield to make them feel at home.
That it would be able to find the compassion and humanity to see Cusack’s life commemorated in the same way that almost every other footballer, taken young, seems to be in this age.
Instead, the club’s chief executive, Stephen Bettis, has offered the FAB the barely credible explanation that, despite nobody in the women’s side actually being handed the No 8 shirt since Cusack’s death, ‘keeping the number in existence gives a reminder of who has worn it previously and keeps Maddy’s memory alive’.
There is also the risible suggestion - an insult to basic intelligence - that retiring the shirt would ‘go against what has been done previously within the club following the passing of players’. They cite the case of former Blades full back George Baldock, who died by accidental drowning in Greece in October 2024, aged 31.
But Baldock did not play for Sheffield United when he lost his life. He had signed for Panathinaikos, who promptly retired his No 32 two weeks after his death.
How classless is Sheffield United's response and the empty excuses?
The second anniversary of Cusack’s death was marked on Saturday with a minute’s applause and her image being cast onto the scoreboard screen in the eighth minute of the home game with Charlton.
But the gesture seemed desperately hollow. This is a young woman who, before her death, lived and breathed Sheffield United, supplementing her modest playing salary by working in their marketing and community department on an annual salary of £6,000, later slightly increased.
Panathinaikos retired former Blades full back George Baldock's No 32 two weeks after he died in October 2024
Cusack was known as 'Miss Sheffield United' because of her work for the club, as a player and marketing executive, who took it upon herself to welcome new recruits
A vigil was staged at Bramall Lane to mark the first anniversary of her death last year. No one from the club hierarchy attended. Family, friends and players stood around in the car park for an hour and then left.
The Cusack family expressed sorrow at the weekend that their daughter’s number was, rather then ‘retired’, simply unworn now in the women’s team: left ‘untouched and disregarded’, as they put it.
They are building something of their own out of that No 8, through the MC8 Foundation set up in their daughter's name to help girls get into football and to support them. Sheffield United don’t follow the foundation on X and have donated nothing to it.
The charity have wanted to make football central to their annual fundraiser, these past two summers. They have taken the event to Derby County’s Pride Park instead. The welcome, by all accounts, has been a warm one.
