Mark Cueto - Biography

Biography

He owes his surname to a Spaniard great-grandfather Antonio, who sailed from Santander in the 1900s and settled in Maryport, Cumbria, where he set up a fish-and-chip shop. His Cumbrian home town of Workington is in an area more associated with rugby league than union. Although he played his first rugby game as an eight-year-old in Workington, and played after he moved with his parents to Wolverhampton, he did not grow up playing the game. When he was 10 years old, his parents moved again to Crewe, where he took up football instead of rugby, becoming a keen Manchester United fan. He did not play rugby again until he was 17. His early club was Altrincham Kersal.

Then, when he was 17 and in his final A-level year at Alsager Comprehensive, there was the annual rugby match against Holmes Chapel. It was an occasion of no great importance. Holmes Chapel had a reasonable team, but rugby players were thin on the ground at Alsager and there was not much debate about the likely result. To make up a team, Alsager teacher Lindsay Purcell recruited a number of footballers. Cueto was one of those press-ganged into service, though when it came to sport he was easily persuaded. Football was number one but he had also done athletics, basketball, volleyball and cricket.

Cueto is married to Suzie (née Richards), originally from Corby in Northamptonshire, who works in the Manchester United FC hospitality department. She gave birth to a baby boy called Max, their first child, on 6 August 2010. They live together in Altrincham. He is a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University.