Heading a football was “likely to have contributed” to the brain injury that contributed to former Scotland defender Gordon McQueen’s death, a coroner has found.
McQueen, who won 30 caps for Scotland between 1974 and 1981 and played for Manchester United and Leeds during a 16-year career, died at his home in North Yorkshire in June 2023, aged 70.
An inquest in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, earlier this month found the cause of death was pneumonia, having been frail and bedridden for several months.
Coroner John Heath said his frailty was due to a combination of vascular dementia and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
The coroner announced Monday that McQueen died of pneumonia caused by a combination of vascular dementia and CTE.
“Repeated impacts to the head from heading the ball while playing football likely contributed to the CTE,” he said.
McQueen’s television host daughter Hayley McQueen appeared in court to hear the findings.
Giving evidence at the inquest earlier this month, she was asked by her lawyer Michael Rawlinson KC whether her father had discussed whether there was any history behind his dementia.
She said: “He said, ‘All those years of being a head footballer probably didn’t help.'”
McQueen said his father was relatively injury-free during his playing days, but did suffer a few concussions, adding: “They just came right back and played.”
She also recalled how, as a child, he would come home from training with Manchester United and lie in a dark room with a headache.
She talked about how healthy and active her father was, both during his playing days and after his retirement, both in sports and with his family.
But around his 60th birthday, her family began to notice changes in his personality, she said.
McQueen said her father had always been very outgoing and outgoing, but had become more introverted.
She said her father was a central defender but was well known for scoring goals from set pieces, usually with his head.
He made a name for himself in England after moving from St Mirren to Leeds in 1972, helping the Yorkshire club win the league in 1973-74 and playing a key role in their run to the 1975 European Cup final.
McQueen then joined Leeds’ arch-rivals Manchester United in 1978, with whom he won the FA Cup in 1983.
He made his senior debut against Belgium in 1974, but after being selected for Scotland, he missed the World Cup in 1978 due to injury.
After retiring as a player, McQueen had a brief stint as Airdrie’s manager and coach at former club St Mirren, before spending five years as coach at Middlesbrough under Brian Robson until 2001.
He became a pundit for Scottish television and Sky Sports.
The inquest heard how, after McQueen’s death, his family donated his brain to Professor Willie Stewart, a consultant neuropathologist at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Professor Stewart has conducted extensive research into brain injuries in soccer and rugby players.
Professor Stewart told the inquest he found evidence of CTE (a brain disease associated with repeated head impacts) and vascular dementia.
Professor Stewart agreed on behalf of the McQueen family with Mr Rawlinson, who asked whether CTE contributed to the death “more than minimally, negligibly or insignificantly” and whether “heading the ball” contributed to CTE.
The professor said the only evidence available was that McQueen had “high exposure” to head football coaches.
