", Popplewell: "I'm sorry to spoil what is obviously a very good story, but I'm afraid it is nonsense for many reasons.". [15], At 3:44pm, five minutes before half-time, the first sign of a firea glowing lightwas noticed three rows from the back of block G,[10][16] as reported by television commentator John Helm. She was hysterical and trying to find her three children. Those with longer memories will also think of the Ibrox disaster of . Yet in 2015, allegations surfaced which shifted the focus to the club's then chairman, Stafford Heginbotham. A Bradford Disaster Appeal Fund raised 3.5m for the victims and their families. Spread by the wind, the wooden roof, which was covered with tarpaulin and sealed with asphalt and bitumen, caught fire. I looked down and I saw my hands melting. We went there to win the last game in front of a home crowd. 1.7M subscribers in the CatastrophicFailure community. Bradford fan David Pendleton, then aged 21 and stood in the main stand: "For the first minute people were laughing and joking, it wasn't anything serious. It's a nice little business and it's something positive that came out of a tragedy. So I threw myself over the wall and luckily someone dived in to catch me before I hit the floor.". The heat was so intense it caused car windows to shatter in the street. ", There has always been a close bond between the club and its supporters since the fire, he adds. [16] Messages of condolence were also received from Helmut Kohl, Chedli Klibi and Felipe Gonzlez. [45] PCs Peter Donald Barrett and David Charles Midgley, along with spectators Michael William Bland and Timothy Peter Leigh received the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct. Although there was no perimeter fencing, such as led to the devastating crush at Hillsborough, locked turnstiles meant that many fans who tried to escape by that means were killed or seriously injured. "It is the little things that show how much people are still involved the fire still has a big impact on people. BBC ON THIS DAY | 11 | 1985: Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire "[35], The total amount of compensation to the 154 claimants was reported to be as high as 20million, with the payouts covered by insurance taken out by the club. The stand had been officially condemned and was due to be replaced with a steel structure after the season ended. Brooklyn fire: Lumber storage warehouse in Williamsburg goes up in Together, flanked by undocumented supporters, they managed to clear all but one person who made it to the front of the stand. We went there to win the last game in front of a home crowd. At 3.40pm, five minutes before half-time, a glowing light was spotted three rows from the back of block G. "We were stood in line with the 18-yard, the penalty area, when we saw some smoke and a bit of fire diagonally from where we were. Uncensored coverage of the fire was transmitted minutes after the event on World of Sport and the BBC's Grandstand after the video cassette was physically driven to Yorkshire Television. Eight fires in the 18 years before the Bradford City fire were identified, many catastrophic and leading to large insurance payouts. Interviews conducted by BBC Radio Leeds' Tim Daley. People pushed him to the ground and tried to smother the flames. "We had already won the league, all the hard work had been done. The scene in there was one of silence and shock. His face was burned and his car, which he had parked outside the ground, was destroyed. At the time of the disaster, many stadiums had perimeter fencing between the stands and the pitch to prevent incidents of football hooliganism particularly pitch invasions which were rife during the 1980s. This day was for them. The heat inside the stand literally ignited people where they stood. The team's coach, Mr Terry Yorath, ran on to the pitch to try to help people away from the stand. Pendleton: "One of my most haunting images was being on the bus home after dark and going past Valley Parade. The fire at a Brooklyn lumber storage building sent plumes of smoke over Williamsburg on Tuesday. The stand slopes downwards from the South Parade. Tarpaulin fell on them and stuck to their clothes and then ignited. Fans in the next stand (the "Bradford End") pulled down the fence separating them from the pitch. > Contacts> Join us> Circulars> Training courses> Sign up to Rollcall. "[37], Fletcher subsequently published a book in 2015, Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire which revealed a history of fires at businesses owned by the Bradford City chairman Stafford Heginbotham. An ancient wooden spectator stand and a dropped cigarette - the ingredients for one of Britain's deadliest soccer tragedies. They stood outside the headquarters, staring at nothing in particular. Spreading with almost unbelievable speed, a small fire under a wooden. While Valley Parade was re-developed, Bradford City played games at various neighbouring grounds: Elland Road, Leeds; Leeds Road, Huddersfield; and Odsal Stadium, Bradford. However, as there was no real precedent, most Bradfordians accepted that the fire was a terrible piece of misfortune. However as the game against Lincoln progressed, a fire began just before half-time in the stand that ran alongside the pitch. Martin Fletcher was talking to BBC Look North. On 11 May 1985 a fire erupted in the midst of a third-division tie between Bradford City and Lincoln City at Valley Parade, killing 54 home supporters and two Lincoln fans. "The players were told to go to the pub at the top of the road, we didn't know at this point if anyone had been killed. There was hardly anything left of him.'. [citation needed] Spectators later spoke of initially feeling their feet becoming warmer; one of them ran to the back of the stand for a fire extinguisher but found none. [1] When the association football club was formed, the ground was changed very little and had no covered accommodation. The Bradford City stadium fire occurred during a Football League Third Division match on Saturday, 11 May 1985 at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, killing 56 spectators and injuring at least 265. We had not been told anything.". "All I could see was eerie white lights that the fire brigade had set up and the smoke still in the sky. Most Bradfordians have accepted the fire was a terrible misfortune. Now they will begin another inquiry, into the cause of the Bradford fire. Samuel Firth, a founder of the supporters' club, was the oldest victim at 86; four 11-year-old boys were the youngest. Representatives from the fire brigade were due to go to the club tomorrow to inspect it and see whether regulations were being observed. Fletcher, who was 12 at the time of the fire, does not make any direct allegations but he does believe Heginbotham's history with fires resulting in payouts of around 27m in today's terms warrants further investigation. "That was the legacy of the tragedy. Among the main outcomes of the inquiry were the banning of new wooden grandstands at all UK sports grounds, the immediate closure of other wooden stands deemed unsafe and the banning of smoking in other wooden stands. Fletcher has taken facts and presented them in such a way that it should make it moralistically impossible for this incident not to be looked at again. Funnily enough I was thinking 'I'm going to miss the second half at this rate'. He later said: "I have never known anything like it, either before, or since. It occurred during a league match in front of record numbers of spectators, on Saturday, 11 May 1985, killing 56 and injuring at least 265. I was there in hospital for eight weeks - it felt like a lifetime. I don't know where Falconer is getting this cock-and-bull story from the inaccuracies in this report [documentary] are dumbfounding. She was an. The other, situated by the main entrance, was donated by the club after its 7.5million (13million today) rebuilding of the original main stand in 2002. It seemed to put it out. All Rights Reserved. He was helped out of the stand by other fans and spent a period of time in hospital. Loading. It made me realise life is too short and I'm a happier person for it.". "I was supposed to meet my father at my grandfather's house, but I was a bit late so I went straight to the game so I didn't miss the festivities.". One, now re-situated to that end of the stand where the fire began, is a sculpture donated on the initial re-opening of Valley Parade in December 1986 by Sylvia Graucob, a then Jersey-based former West Yorkshire woman. 1908 - Rhoads Opera House fire, Boyertown, Pennsylvania, killed 170. Burning timber and molten material began to fall onto the seating below and black smoke enveloped the passageway behind, where fans were trying to escape. Other parents whose children had not arrived home on Saturday called at the police station or sat in cars outside, waiting for news. Smoke was seen coming from the third row in the section but people are apparently used to seeing smoke flares on the Bradford ground. But many, including Harrison, believe it could unnecessarily reopen wounds if it does happen. The Bradford City stadium fire occurred during a Football League Third Division match on Saturday, 11 May 1985 at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, killing 56 spectators and injuring at least 265. 199 Bradford City Stadium Fire Photos and Premium High Res Pictures "I looked up and saw the flames. The fire at Bradford City's Valley Parade stadium in which 56 people died and more than 270 were injured is remembered 25 years on. That's when everybody else had the same thought. However, there is a lot in this book that troubles me about the science, or lack of it, used in the testing of the investigators' hypothesis as to the source of the ignition. Hillsborough looms the largest in our collective consciousness, but there were also the many deaths that occurred at Heysel Stadium in 1985, as well as the Bradford City stadium fire that same year. They were hampered further by the fact that doors at the back of the stand were locked to try to stop people coming in without paying. I'd seen the film on the Saturday but the bleakness of the stadium burnt out, and the gloom that afflicted everybody, was dreadful. Most of those who escaped onto the pitch were saved.[10]. People were falling on to each other and screaming. The club's success had swollen the crowd to 10,000 and arguments will rage about fire precautions at the ground. Luckily, his father arrived home shortly after he did, but 30 years on, he still remembers the young woman who served him a Mars Bar and his father a coffee, who never made it out of the stadium. Called 'The 56' the play dramatises actual accounts of the Bradford City Fire with the purpose of the play showing how in times of adversity, the Football Club and the local community came together. [58] Following this report, Leslie Brownlie, who was the nephew in question, is reported to have said that his uncle never made such an admission of starting the fire. [17], One witness saw paper or debris on fire, about nine inches (230mm) below the floor boards. Town began to paint two years ago, first of the old Bradford Park Avenue ground, before moving onto other stadiums. Wildman: "I was burnt from top to bottom, on and off. Bradford council introduced its emergency plans procedure yesterday to give aid to many families affected by the disaster. Martin Fletcher, a Bradford fan who lost three generations of his family in the fire, published a memoir of the tragic event called Fifty-Six The Story Of The Bradford Fire, in which he claimed the blaze at Valley Parade was one of nine fires at businesses owned by or associated with Heginbotham. The Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, Mr Colin Sampson, said yesterday that a team of doctors and pathologists had worked throughout the night trying to identify the dead. The entrances to the stand were all at the rear and were higher than the rest of the ground. Soon they were all running for their lives. [22], Immediately after the fire, Sharpe planned and treated the injuries of over 200 individuals, with many experimental treatments being used. "But the feeling here is that it is hard to believe that someone would purposefully start a fire. A minute later he saw a small plume of smoke so he poured his coffee on it and so did his son. Those are the words of David Pendleton, a survivor of the Bradford City fire disaster, which happened 30 years ago. Copyright 2023 IBTimes UK. Cigarette smoking was also banned at all grounds with wooden stands. The fire started five minutes before half-time during the match on 11 May between Bradford and Lincoln City. The Bradford City stadium fire : r/MorbidReality You could hardly breathe. "All you could see was black cloud. Mike Harrison, the editor of the Bradford City Football Club fanzine The City Gent, was there on the day. The 1985 Bradford City Football Stadium Fire What Happened and Why I remember trying to make sense of what was going on. We, and the world, need Burning Man and Black Rock City more than ever. It was unprecedented.". Valley Parade re-opened on 14 December 1986, when Bradford City beat an England XI 21 in a friendly. "A disaster is not black and white - it is a mass of factors.". The smoke was choking. The only fire extinguishers in the ground were in the clubroom, which is also in the main stand. A fire at a third division match between Bradford City and Lincoln City killed 56, including 11 children, and injured hundreds more. [14] It took less than four minutes for the entire stand to be engulfed in flames.[11]. Someone came in and shouted: 'Get out, get out there's a fire'. A bid of 350 has been made for the original painting and Town will sell 56 prints in memorial of those who lost their lives, with the aim of raising 3,000 for the Bradford Burns Unit. It was clear from what the Chief Fire Officer for West Yorkshire, Mr Graham Karran, said yesterday that the ground was far from safe. Bradford City Stadium Fire 56 Dead & 100's Injured The Bradford City stadium fire was a stadium disaster that occurred during an English League Third Division fixture between Bradford City and Lincoln City on Saturday, 11 May 1985, killing 56 and injuring at least 265. The inquiry into the disaster, chaired by Sir Oliver Popplewell and known as the Popplewell Inquiry,[25] led to the introduction of new legislation to improve safety at the UK's football grounds. Valley Parade in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was built in 1886 and was initially the home ground of Manningham Rugby Football Club. Bradford City stadium fire. A football match in Bradford UK ends You may notice some big changes in Black Rock City this year. The fire brigade arrived at the ground four minutes after they were initially alerted. We use necessary cookies to make our site work. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as the Man, that occurs on the penultimate night of Burning Man, which is the Saturday evening before Labor Day. It was during this treatment that Sharpe began to develop the Bradford Sling,[21] which applies even pressure across sensitive areas. He agreed that the inquiry into Bradford, led by the judge Oliver Popplewell, was inadequate and that there are many unanswered questions. Recommended The untold stories of the 1985 fire After the fire, Bradford City also announced they would thereafter play with a black trim on their shirt sleeves as a permanent memorial to those who had died. "I want the truth to be out, the myths to be broken, so that I can get on with my life rather than knowing this information and having to live with this information. It slipped through a hole in the floorboard. The Bradford City Stadium Fire 1985 - The Football Inferno [2] The main stand was described as a "mammoth structure", but was unusual for its time because of its place on the side of a hill. Part of the service was also held in Urdu and Punjabi as a sign of appreciation to the local ethnically Asian Subcontinental community in Manningham, Bradford and around Valley Parade who had opened their homes to Bradford City supporters to provide assistance in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The plastic surgeon who treated the injuries of over 200, Professor David Sharpe, went on to set up a world-renowned burns research facility at the University of Bradford. Then the flames and smoke were all over the place.'. Others ran forward to try to clamber over a fence and a small wall on to the pitch. The Bradford city stadium fire. 56 people died when a - reddit "Us players must have been in the tunnel for seconds - and I mean seconds. Coach Terry Yorath described the events as "the worst day in my life. There has been reports of people lighting paper under the seats, and it was important that as many fans as possible who were in the stand or at the Kop end contacted the police. [10] Of those who died, 11 were under-18 and 23 were aged 65 or over,[20] and the oldest victim was the club's former chairman, Sam Firth, aged 86. His father Tony went back the following day and said: "I wondered how anybody had got out alive, but I also began to feel guilty that I had got out when so many hadn't." 'They did not have a chance. Watch Missed Warnings on BBC One in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 22:45 BST on Tuesday, 12 May. The blame was through neglect, they didn't have the money to maintain the stand. I've never seen anything like it. More than 250 others were injured in one of the biggest disasters at a British football ground. For the 30th anniversary of the fire a new version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" was recorded at Voltage Studios in Bradford. The Bradford City stadium fire was the worst fire disaster in the history of football.. " Burning Man," " Burning Man Project," " Black Rock City ", and . People were scrambling for their lives to get out, and I know having sat in that stand normally that it is difficult and there is a drop to get to the pitch level," Harrison says. "One of my most haunting images was being on the bus home after dark and going past Valley Parade. We were sat in our football kit, we didn't know what to do. We didn't know how serious it was.". "[55], Adams also went on to state that "I have read in some newspapers that he is being berated for his campaign to have a new inquiry. The stadium was known for its antiquated design and facilities, which included the wooden roof of the main stand. It was the brainchild of Bradford City fan Lloyd Spencer with all profits going to the Bradford Royal Infirmary Burns Unit.[43]. It detailed the safety work which would be carried out at Valley Parade as a result of the club's promotion, admitting the ground was "inadequate in so many ways for modern requirements". There was some kind of disturbance near the edge of a block of seats in the G section of the main stand. There were no extinguishers in the stand's passageway for fear of vandalism, and one spectator ran to the clubhouse to find one but was overcome by smoke and impeded by others trying to escape. [12] The work was expected to cost 400,000 (1.3million today). He saw smoke coming from a small area of the stand and thought that someone had let off a flare. Many were burnt to death at the turnstiles gates, which had also been locked after the match had begun. "How quickly the fire spread is difficult to convey to people.". Football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to carry out the work. I dread to imagine how many more could have died if the wind had been blowing in the direction of the pitch, instead of away from it. But looking back and seeing how much it really affected my dad makes me realise what we went through." It was appalling that public money was given to the club while it was still owned by the same shareholders under whose direction the fire had happened. We couldn't breathe. Four police officers, constables David Britton and John Richard Ingham and chief inspectors Charles Frederick Mawson and Terence Michael Slocombe, and two spectators, Richard Gough and David Hustler, were awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for their actions. "Several minutes before half-time I saw there was a wee bit of bother. "I feel such information should be made public and people should look at those facts, then make their mind up on those facts. Edited by BBC Sport's Jonathan Jurejko. One man clambered over burning seats to help a fan,[18] as did player John Hawley,[15] and one officer led fans to an exit, only to find it shut and had to turn around. It was sort of the good thing to come out of the nightmare," says Simon Parker, a football reporter for the Telegraph and Argus. People who had escaped the fire then tried to assist their fellow supporters. Burning Man - Wikipedia Only then do you realise the huge network of people the fire involved. We went over to the policeman stood at the corner flag and asked if it was being sorted out, and he said it was under control," Harrison says. ", "There was a throw-in in front of the stand where the fire started - something caught my eye. One woman was seen running around the ground with no skin on her arms and face. [11], The disaster also had a long-lasting effect on the fans. The wooden roof that burned was scheduled to be replaced by a steel roof later that same . Most of the exits at the back were locked or shut and there were no stewards present to open them, but seven were forced open or found open. People were wandering around outside the ground in disbelief, reminiscent of an air disaster, at what had happened the day before. 56 people dead. [30], The outcome of the test case resulted in over 154 claims being addressed (110 civilians and 44 police officers)[31] by the injured or bereaved. Within a few hours of the blaze starting, it was established that 56 people had been killed, many as a result of smoke inhalation, although some of them had survived until reaching hospital.[11]. The fact is that no one person was concerned with the safety of the premises. 'I have to tell you that the fire was so intense that identifying people is going to be the great problem we have to face.'. And the black and twisted skeleton of the burnt stand stood out in the night. The main stand at Bradford was not surrounded by fencing, and therefore most of the spectators in it could escape onto the pitch if they had been penned in then the death toll would inevitably have been in the hundreds if not the thousands. But I've never spoken to anyone who thought the fire wasn't anything other than a tragic accident. The Bradford City disaster took place on Saturday May 11, 1985 when a flash fire occurred at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England. "Since then I have thought of everything we could have done, but we didn't have the presence of mind to run across the pitch and tell people to get out. Some people seem to have run back up the slope, thinking that they could get back through the turnstiles, and were burned alive. I had to put my jumper over his hair to put the blaze out. [51] Another book; 56: The Story of the Bradford Fire (2015) was written by Martin Fletcher to discuss how the disaster was caused, and follows his loss of his father, brother, uncle and grandfather. **The Bradford City Stadium Tragedy** - Firehouse [10] One eyewitness, Geoffrey Mitchell, told the BBC: "It spread like a flash. [8][10] Three men smashed down one door and at least one exit was opened by people outside, which again helped prevent further deaths. Helm: "There was a throw-in in front of the stand where the fire started - something caught my eye. "Then we ran out in our tracksuits each holding a massive card with a letter. Fletcher has been the only survivor to publicly challenge the inquiry's findings. The game was goalless after 40 minutes when play was stopped. "That's when I thought 'this is time to get out of here'. We accepted it was an accident, nobody wanted to blame the club because it was the club we wanted to support.