Heading a football “likely” contributed to the brain injury which was a factor in the death of the former Scotland defender Gordon McQueen, a coroner has found.
McQueen – who was capped for Scotland 30 times between 1974 and 1981, and played for both Manchester United and Leeds during a 16-year career – died at his home in North Yorkshire in June 2023, aged 70.
The cause of death was pneumonia as he had become frail and bed-bound for months, the inquest in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, heard earlier this month. That frailty was due to a combination of vascular dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), coroner Jon Heath said.
The coroner gave a narrative conclusion on Monday, finding that McQueen died from pneumonia as a consequence of mixed vascular dementia and CTE. He said: “It is likely that repetitive head impacts sustained by heading the ball while playing football contributed to the CTE.”
McQueen’s TV presenter daughter Hayley McQueen was in court to hear the findings. When giving evidence at his inquest earlier this month, she was asked by her barrister Michael Rawlinson KC if her father had discussed whether anything in his past history was behind his dementia. “He said: ‘Heading a football for all those years probably hasn’t helped,’” she recalled.
She said her father was relatively injury-free during his career but did suffer some concussions, adding: “They would just head back out and play.” She also recalled how, when she was young, he would come home from training with Manchester United and lie down in a darkened room with a headache.
McQueen came to prominence in England following his move to Leeds from St Mirren in 1972, helping the Yorkshire club to league title success in 1973-74 and playing a key role in their run to the European Cup final in 1975. McQueen then joined Leeds’s arch-rivals Manchester United in 1978 and went on to win the FA Cup in 1983. Injury deprived him of a World Cup appearance in 1978 after he had been included in Scotland’s squad having made his senior international debut in 1974 against Belgium.
After retiring as a player, McQueen had a brief spell as Airdrie manager and coach at former club St Mirren, and spent five years as coach at Middlesbrough under Bryan Robson until 2001. He went on to become a pundit on Scottish TV and on Sky Sports.
The inquest heard how McQueen’s family donated his brain, after his death, to Prof Willie Stewart – a consultant neuropathologist at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, Glasgow, who has conducted extensive research into brain injury in footballers and rugby players. Prof Stewart told the inquest he found evidence of CTE – a brain disorder linked to repeated head impacts – and vascular dementia.
Stewart agreed with Mr Rawlinson, for the McQueen family, when he asked whether the CTE “more than minimally, negligibly or trivially” contributed to the death and that “heading the ball” contributed to the CTE. The professor said the only evidence available was McQueen’s “high exposure” to heading a football.
