Hayley McQueen: Heading ball contributed to my footballer dad’s death

Gordon McQueen of Manchester United in action for his team during a match against Tottenham Hotspur at their ground at White Hart Lane, north London. Photo / Getty Images

It was the crowning moment of Gordon McQueen’s glittering football career. A towering header past Ray Clemence in front of 100,000 fans at Wembley Stadium to help Scotland beat England and clinch the British Home Championship. There were 75,000 Scotland fans inside Wembley that June day in 1977, with most then invading the pitch in celebrations that famously ended with a broken crossbar. A once joyous memory, however, now also provides a stark reminder of how McQueen’s brilliant aerial presence would so tragically cut short his life.

The McQueen family have long suspected that heading footballs had killed Gordon and this week they finally received answers from a coroner in Northallerton. An inquest into McQueen’s death, at the age of 70, in June 2023, found that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a devastating brain disease caused by head impacts, was a significant factor in his death.

“It is likely that repetitive head impacts, sustained by heading the ball when playing football, contributed to the CTE,” concluded coroner Jonathan Heath, who said that the combination of CTE and vascular dementia had ultimately led to pneumonia.

Professor Willie Stewart, the neurologist who examined McQueen’s brain, had found CTE alongside vascular dementia and what appeared to be a torn membrane. “He said, ‘If I hadn’t known he was a footballer I would have thought he was a boxer,’” McQueen’s daughter Hayley, the Sky Sports presenter, told The Daily Telegraph.

“Watching that goal for Scotland makes me feel sad because I realise that’s why we’ve lost my dad younger than he would have gone. But, equally, he just loved it so much. He loved playing football; loved everything about it but, ultimately, it took him in the end. So it’s weird now, looking back at pictures of him scoring goals with his head.”

In his statement to North Yorkshire coroner’s court, former team-mate Joe Jordan outlined how the 6ft 3in McQueen would practise heading on a daily basis, honing his threat from attacking set-pieces but also staying back for aerial clearances from balls pumped forward 40 yards by goalkeepers and full-backs. “Gordon’s task was to jump, attack the ball, and head it as far, and as powerfully as possible, to clear danger,” explained Jordan.

Yet these repeated head impacts amounted to a ticking time bomb that would sit silently for decades before unleashing its devastating consequences. McQueen, who won a league title with Leeds, the FA Cup with Manchester United and played in two major European finals, retired at 33 but would not begin experiencing the first noticeable symptoms of neurological disease until his early sixties. “He would say, ‘I don’t feel right, there’s something wrong with my head’ and he hadn’t headed a ball for 30 years,” says Hayley. “I think that’s such an important point; that delayed onset of what you do when you’re younger.

Gordon McQueen of Scotland is tackled by Dave Watson of England at Wembley Stadium on June 4, 1977. Photo / Getty Images

“He wasn’t an old man … you think ‘63 is not that old’. I’m not dismissing an 80 or 90-year-old with dementia but we have no dementia in our family, no Alzheimer’s. I don’t know if people appreciate how early it’s impacting people.

“We started to see small signs – things like balance and personality changes – but it took years before it got so bad that we then decided to go and get some diagnosis.

“I think we were all a little bit in denial and didn’t want to see what might potentially happen to my dad further down the line. There were little bits that we picked up on, and then it just spiralled from there. When we found out that he did have dementia, he didn’t want to know. He was, ‘I don’t want dementia.’ He would say ‘heading a football all those years probably hasn’t helped.’ It was only really in the last two years, 18 months in particular, where he was really bad. The last year and a half, he was asleep most of the day on and off. He declined quite quickly.”

‘It was brutal – he was bedridden for six months’

As well as problems with his balance, McQueen developed dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) which led to him needing pureed food and losing weight. He was no longer able to hold a pen or make a cup of tea and, from once being the life and soul of any gathering, did not want to leave the house and ultimately became bed-bound.

But parts of his brain were still functioning and he would still remember people and moments from his great career, suddenly listing off the starting XI of an opposition team. He initially also continued to attempt crosswords or puzzles. “Eddie Kyle [an old friend] literally came to visit my dad almost every day. He would sit and then go through all the football results, predict the scores on the Friday, and then they’d get together on a Monday, even though I don’t know how much he was taking in towards the end. He just wouldn’t really know what year it was or what day it was. Your brain is working 10 times harder to try and keep up because the rest of it is obviously not working properly.”

The family first received a doctor’s call to gather at their home in Hutton Rudby late in 2022, but McQueen, whose autopsy found a strong heart and liver, would then rally. He died five days after the 2023 Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter Milan on which Hayley was working. “It was absolutely brutal – my dad was bedridden for six months,” says Hayley. “I’d flown back to Istanbul and spent his last few days with him. He knew me and recognised me straight away. He said, ‘Hi Hayley’, which was indescribable and it was not long after that he shut his eyes.

“Even when he was really bad towards the end, when he was laid in the bed and we knew he didn’t have long, he put his thumbs up and said, ‘I’m fine’. That was one of the last things he said.

“He almost went into protection mode. He must have known that this was it. He had privately said to my mum, ‘I’m dying’ but didn’t want to tell any of us kids. He didn’t want us to know. He suffered but didn’t let on that he was suffering.”

Hayley was one of Gordon and Yvonne’s three children alongside sister Anna and brother Edward. By the time of her birth in 1979, Gordon had already won the league title with Don Revie’s Leeds United and 29 of his 30 Scotland caps. He remained a regular in Manchester United’s defence for a further five years before ending his career in Hong Kong.

Footballer Gordon McQueen with his wife Yvonne and their new born daughter Hayley McQueen. They celebrated the birth of their daughter by naming her after film star Hayley Mills. Photo / Getty Images

“I remember coming home from school and Dad would be in bed,” she says. “He would say he’s been having headaches. I remember thinking ‘why are you having headaches?’”

Although Hayley can recall regularly going to United’s Cliff training ground – and vividly remembers seeing the big players’ bath at Old Trafford – her clearest early recollections of him were outside football. The family moved back up to Scotland after he retired, where he would coach both at Airdrieonians and St Mirren, while helping Yvonne run a card shop in Paisley. He would also become a popular broadcaster for both MUTV and Sky Sports.

“We always remember my dad as a character – fun and daft. I’d be out for nights out with my friends, but he’d still always be up when I got back. We very much had that open-door house no matter where we lived. We always had people sleeping over. Bryan and Denise [Robson] used to come and stay with us. The Jordans were like a constant in our lives growing up with seven kids between the two couples.

“There would always be people coming to visit; not just the footballers, but people in the village. I remember him ringing the school to tell them that we couldn’t come to school one day because we were snowed in.

“Little did the school know that the nearby farms absolutely made sure that the big trucks would come down because they came and took the milk every single day. So we went sledding all day – we were human snowballs in the fields in Scotland.

“He wanted to make sure we had an education that he didn’t but, every now and again, he’d come and take us all out of school on a Friday and we’d go to the cinema. I remember going to see Cool Runnings and then there was a James Bond film on at the same time. He left us in back-to-back movies for the afternoon on a Friday.”

‘We were told it could be lifestyle choices’

McQueen, says Hayley, loved music and was also an avid reader, taking a huge interest in news and current affairs. She says, though, that there was never any awareness among his generation of footballers about the dangers of repeatedly heading a football. “The problem with football is you’re entering something when you do not know the risks,” she says. “His ankles pretty much fell apart in later life – but my dad said he was always given a choice with cortisone injections. But they were never once taught about heading of the ball, how dangerous it could be, or he said he wouldn’t have stayed back in training.

“My dad was a very intelligent, well-read man. He remembered everything about everything. He could answer any question in a quiz. He literally read the newspapers every day from beginning to end. Always had his wireless on next to the bed. He’s got pretty much a library at home of books. He said, ‘Not once did I ever read any literature about heading of the ball and the risks’.”

The family watched Alan Shearer’s Dementia, Football & Me documentary in 2017, with Gordon himself later making the decision that he would like to donate his brain in order to further knowledge of football’s risks. “He was, ‘yes absolutely’,” she says. “I said, ‘Dad you are not going to be around’. He was ‘I know’.

“At one point my sister reached out to the PFA to see if they could get some kind of help. I think they are looking at it very differently now but one of the first things we were told was, ‘Well it could be lifestyle choices’. What are you trying to imply? That person does not work at the PFA any more.

“The reason my dad’s battle was so cruel was because his body, his heart, and all his healthy internal organs were fighting against a dying brain. His body was fighting something that his brain wasn’t able to keep up with. It was horrendous. It wasn’t self-inflicted. That, for me, was the worst because he was healthy in so many other ways.”

The McQueen family now wants to raise awareness of the dangers of repetitive heading, stressing it is not just professionals at risk and that the priority must be educating children, teachers and coaches. Research by the University of Glasgow has shown that, as well as at 3.5 times increased risk of professional players dying from dementia, there is a further direct link to the length of your career and playing in a position like centre-back that involves the most heading.

Hayley has spoken to many other ex-pros, including the former England manager Gareth Southgate, who are concerned now about what the future might bring and they have also been supporting Judith Gates’s Head Safe Football charity with their education programme to reduce heading in training. “There are guidelines against heading in youth football and it needs to be implemented more,” Hayley said. Her sister Anna added: “I think the football authorities are scared. They’ve got to stand up and make a change. Football is a beautiful sport – it doesn’t need to take people’s lives”. The family have also taken huge comfort from the outpouring of support and tributes following Gordon’s death. As well as black armbands and applause at the next international game, Elton John dedicated a song during his live performance in Scotland.

“I don’t think anything can prepare you for the pain of losing a parent, no matter how prepared you think you might be, I can’t thank everyone enough for the kind words,” says Hayley. “I’m hoping we can now remember him for the man he was; the ultimate entertainer, the life and soul of every occasion, the greatest storyteller who lived life to the full. The tributes were lovely, but I also get so gutted – because I’d have loved him to have seen and heard them.”

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