Former Sheffield United<\/a> footballer George Baldock died in an accident in his own swimming pool with no drugs or alcohol in his system, an inquest has concluded.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old Greece<\/a> international had been living in Athens<\/a> after recently signing for Panathinaikos when he died on 9 October last year.<\/p>\n He spent the majority of his career playing as a defender for MK Dons<\/a> and Sheffield United<\/a>, having been born in Buckinghamshire<\/a>, and had played a club fixture just three days prior to the incident.<\/p>\n An inquest into Baldock\u2019s death at Milton Keynes Coroner\u2019s Court on Wednesday confirmed his medical cause of death as drowning.<\/p>\n His family had previously said in a statement that Baldock had \u201ctragically drowned\u201d whilst swimming in the pool at his home.<\/p>\n An investigation by Greek<\/a> police after the incident also found no evidence of criminal activity.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Wembley Stadium paid tribute to Baldock the day after his death (Adam Davy\/PA)<\/p>\n Baldock was discovered in the swimming pool at his address, in the Glyfada district of Athens<\/a>, on 9 October and attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n A post-mortem examination found no drugs or alcohol in his system and that he had a very large heart \u201cthat would have meant that he was susceptible to heart arrythmias\u201d, where the heart beats too fast, too slowly or irregularly.<\/p>\n Senior coroner for Milton Keynes Tom Osborne<\/a> concluded Baldock\u2019s death was an accident.<\/p>\n Tributes were paid across the country in the days after Baldock\u2019s death<\/a>, including by his former clubs and at a Nations League<\/a> match between England<\/a> and Greece<\/a> at Wembley where the stadium held a period of silence and both teams wore black armbands.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Baldock played for the Blades in the Premier League (Nigel French\/PA)<\/p>\n In a statement released at the time, Baldock\u2019s family said: \u201cGeorge, you were the most special father, fiance, son, brother, uncle, friend, team-mate and person.<\/p>\n \u201cYour enthusiasm and infectious personality brought so much love to those that were fortunate enough to know you and those that adored you from the stands.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will forever cherish the special memories we have of you and you will continue to live on in your beautiful son.\u201d<\/p>\n Baldock was due to fly home the following day to celebrate his son\u2019s first birthday, his family said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-285680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114903594620872152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Wembley](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/e5e844b9b7c593434b6d7bbdb7542a9bY29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzUzMzcwMzIz-2.77767065.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Baldock](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/9465a53192732d50194f5263d4e554d9Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzI4NjczNTQy-2.77759853.jpg\")
<\/p>\n