"When I got to one of the final walls, there was an eight-foot drop at the other side, concrete at the bottom. The fire was described as the worst fire disaster in the history of British football, and the worst football related disaster since 66spectators died at Ibrox in 1971. "I was burnt from top to bottom, on and off. 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. But looking back and seeing how much it really affected my dad makes me realise what we went through." The next day work began on clearing the burnt out shell of the stand, and Justice Popplewell released his findings into the disaster. Parents and children were laughing and joking with the police as the preliminaries to the game began. As he received the injured at Bradford Royal Infirmary he was able to call upon 10% of the UK's population of plastic surgeons. 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. It made me realise life is too short and I'm a happier person for it.". Club coach Terry Yorath incurred minor injuries while taking part in the rescue. [40] Matthew Wildman was 17 at the time and needed crutches to walk because of rheumatoid arthritis. So I threw myself over the wall and luckily someone dived in to catch me before I hit the floor.". In the last few years, the BCFC kit-man John Duckworth did a sponsored 73-mile walk between Lincoln's Sincil Bank stadium and Valley Parade, joined by Bradford fans along the way. The horrific scenes of people burning alive seemed to live on in an eerie silence as daylight broke over the remains of Bradford City Football Club's ground yesterday. [12] The work was expected to cost 400,000 (1.3million today). Fire on Upper Castle Street, Bradford Yorkshire Evening Post On This Day 1985: The Bradford City Fire 0:15 Bradford Mill fire 24:43 The Bradford Fire 0:26 Large fire in Bradford Yorkshire Evening Post Bradford Mill fire 0:34 Bradford Great Horton Mill fire 0:10 Fire at Bradford school (video: Glynn Beck) 4:05 bradford city fc fire 1985 "A disaster is not black and white - it is a mass of factors.". [7] As it was the first piece of league silverware that the club had captured since they won the Division Three (North) title 56years earlier, 11,076supporters were in the ground. Hundreds more telephoned the police to try to trace relatives. [10][16] Geoffrey Mitchell said: "There was panic as fans stampeded to an exit which was padlocked. One family was in tears, the mother shaking. "[33], Central to the test case were two letters sent to Bradford City's Club Secretary by the West Yorkshire Fire Brigade; the second letter dated 18 July 1984 specifically highlighted in full the improvements needed to be actioned at the ground as well as the fire risk at the main stand. Coach Terry Yorath described the events as "the worst day in my life. ", There has always been a close bond between the club and its supporters since the fire, he adds. I've never seen anything like it. "I feel such information should be made public and people should look at those facts, then make their mind up on those facts. 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. As many supporters still required rescue from the stand, they were unable to immediately start fighting the source of the fire. "[16] As spectators began to cascade over the wall separating the stand from the pitch, the linesman on that side of the pitch informed referee Norman Glover, who stopped the game with three minutes remaining before half-time. The smoke was choking. [13], The match kicked off at 3:04pm and after forty minutes of the first half, the score remained 00,[14] in what was described as a drab affair with neither team threatening to score. Other parents whose children had not arrived home on Saturday called at the police station or sat in cars outside, waiting for news. "For the first minute people were laughing and joking, it wasn't anything serious. Helm: "The scene became progressively horrendous, grotesque, and I was having to describe things you couldn't possibly imagine.". Like all areas of forensic investigations, it has come on leaps and bounds. Eight fires in the 18 years before the Bradford City fire were identified, many catastrophic and leading to large insurance payouts. Lincoln City's board responded by committing 1.1million (3.5million today) to their ground's renovation in the year that immediately followed the fire at Valley Parade, and over the following decade made improvements that eventually totalled 3million. I saw one man lying on the ground, burning from head to foot. "It is hard to imagine how Martin and his mother have managed to cope over the last 30 years and we have always respected him," Harrison says. Funnily enough I was thinking 'I'm going to miss the second half at this rate'. The chairman of the football club, Mr Stafford Heginbotham, was near to tears as he explained what had happened. [15] They included three who tried to escape through the toilets, 27 who were found by exit K and turnstiles 6 to 9 at the rear centre of the stand, and two elderly people who had died in their seats. Smoke was seen coming from the third row in the section but people are apparently used to seeing smoke flares on the Bradford ground. (2015), 2003 Football League Third Division play-off final, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bradford_City_stadium_fire&oldid=1141323458, Fire disasters involving barricaded escape routes, Pages containing London Gazette template with parameter supp set to y, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2010, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2021, Articles needing additional references from May 2018, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from December 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Fan attempted to extinguish a lit cigarette, it slipped through floorboards and fell on rubbish, igniting it. Those with longer memories will also think of the Ibrox disaster of . Tarpaulin fell on them and stuck to their clothes and then ignited. Keep an eye out as you ride your bike through the city you will see a new solar-powered Man, fewer gas and . By this date the appeal fund set up for survivors had paid out more than 4m with further payouts expected as the effects of physical and mental injury were determined. Videos, gifs, or aftermath photos of machinery, structures, or devices Police officers also assisted in the rescue attempts. I had no idea. Samuel Firth, a founder of the supporters' club, was the oldest victim at 86; four 11-year-old boys were the youngest. Sir Oliver Popplewell, the High Court judge who led the Valley Parade inquiry in 1985: "The scene when I arrived was horrendous. The team's coach, Mr Terry Yorath, ran on to the pitch to try to help people away from the stand. 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. Then flames licked the underside of the seats, which were a combination of wood and plastic. When cross examined by QC Robert Smith, then Chairman Stafford Heginbotham said he knew about the fire risk at the ground. The fire brigade said that when heat builds up so quickly it can cause flames to move much quicker than people can walk. "[59], Raymond Falconer's reliability had previously been questioned by Daniel Taylor in The Guardian who stated that: "The Bradford Telegraph and Argus described him as a 'top detective'. For the 30th anniversary of the fire a new version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" was recorded at Voltage Studios in Bradford. The flames suddenly appeared and the whole roof took alight,' he said. However as the game against Lincoln progressed, a fire began just before half-time in the stand that ran alongside the pitch. Listen to Valley Parade: Bradford City Fire Remembered on BBC Radio Leeds (18:00 BST) and BBC Radio 5 live (21:00 BST). 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." Forty-two minutes into the first half of the game, he looked to his left to see smoke and flames rising from the old wooden seats. "The one thing I remember at the time is we were grateful that we got an answer quickly after the inquiry. At Valley Parade there are now two memorials. [2] By 1911, his work was completed. Instead it turned into a day of appalling tragedy. It was also a catalyst for the substantial redevelopment and modernisation of many British football grounds within the following thirty years. The match was recorded by Yorkshire Television for their regional edition of the ITV Sunday afternoon football show The Big Match. 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 do not include the people currently running the club, who have always displayed a great, sensitive duty to the memory of those who died. Stories From 11 May. [14] It took less than four minutes for the entire stand to be engulfed in flames.[11]. Spreading with almost unbelievable speed, a small fire under a wooden bench consumed the entire stand in under four minutes.Original TV footage: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31qcmtIf you would like to support this channel - https://buymeacoffee.com/TheRavensEyeAlthough focused primarily on disasters, this channel is all about the interesting, the strange, the unsolved, the tragic. Some days I had two operations in a day. [10] One eyewitness, Geoffrey Mitchell, told the BBC: "It spread like a flash. 'I think that is unlikely,' he said. 1908 - Rhoads Opera House fire, Boyertown, Pennsylvania, killed 170. We were sat in our football kit, we didn't know what to do. 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. He was helped out of the stand by other fans and spent a period of time in hospital. "We went out on to the pitch and I could see so many happy faces. Another player went into the office space to ensure there was nobody there. BurningMan.NYC will announce the dates and process for the 2023 grant cycle on this site & all BurningMan.NYC social channels in early Spring. Website by, Bradford City FC stadium fire | 11th May 1985, Fundraising for firefighters and their families. Surviving supporters, former Bradford players, the sole television commentator at the stadium and the judge who led the government inquiry tell the BBC about that fateful afternoon and its aftermath. People smothered him to extinguish the flames, but he later died of his injuries in hospital. By the time they got back, the whole thing had taken off. "It wasn't covering anything up, it wasn't avoiding the truth of what happened, everyone knows what happened, everyone knows it shouldn't have happened. An inquiry launched in the aftermath of the disaster led to legislation to improve safety at football grounds. Some had been crushed as they tried to crawl under turnstiles to escape. The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the fire risk that the rubbish accumulating under the stand had posed. [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. Although I was only 12 at the time, 11 May 1985 is a day. Others ran forward to try to clamber over a fence and a small wall on to the pitch. 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. [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. An ancient wooden spectator stand and a dropped cigarette - the ingredients for one of Britain's deadliest soccer tragedies. 1908 - Collinwood school fire, in Collinwood, Ohio (soon absorbed by Cleveland ), on March 4, killed 175. Representatives from the fire brigade were due to go to the club tomorrow to inspect it and see whether regulations were being observed. It wasn't until later on when assistant manager Terry Yorath came in and said: 'It's not good.'". Artist Paul Town, who now lives in Baildon, was 15 at the time of the fire. [8][10] Three men smashed down one door and at least one exit was opened by people outside, which again helped prevent further deaths. "I remember not being able to watch it, but we couldn't get out. 1985: Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire. It was sort of the good thing to come out of the nightmare," says Simon Parker, a football reporter for the Telegraph and Argus. And the black and twisted skeleton of the burnt stand stood out in the night. Disaster struck at 3.43 pm. Pendleton: "One of my most haunting images was being on the bus home after dark and going past Valley Parade. "We stayed in the pub for hours. Martin Fletcher was talking to BBC Look North. Helm later described the start of the fire in an interview to the Express newspaper: .mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, [A] man over from Australia visiting his son got two tickets to the game. [49], Parrs Wood Press published Four Minutes to Hell: The Story of the Bradford City Fire (2005) by author Paul Firth;[50] the title refers to the estimated time it took for the stand to be completely ablaze from the first flames being spotted. A discarded cigarette and a dilapidated wooden stand, which had survived because the club did not have the money to replace it, and accumulated paper litter, were considered to have conspired to cause the worst disaster in the history of the Football League. 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. On Saturday 11 May 2002, the 17th anniversary of the disaster, a memorial with the names of those who lost their lives was dedicated at the new entrance to the redeveloped Sunwin stand. However, when Bradford City won promotion to the highest level of English football, Division One, in 1908, club officials sanctioned an upgrade programme. The blaze is believed to have begun when a dropped cigarette lit rubbish under the wooden seats of the wooden Main Stand at Bradford City's Valley Parade stadium [6], The 198485 season had been one of Bradford City's most successful seasons, ending with City clinching the championship title courtesy of a 20 victory against Bolton Wanderers in the penultimate game of the season. By the time the fire brigade arrived they were faced with huge flames and dense smoke. The intensity of the blaze which spread 'quicker than people could walk' destroyed the main stand area, leaving a skeleton of burned seats, lamps and fences. All existing grandstands deemed fire risks were faced with immediate closure. Many who had walked out of the fire stood on the pitch looking back in horror as the flames destroyed the stand. "I parked my van outside because I started making enough money painting as I was in construction. Bradford city council officials, off-duty policemen and guests from Bradford 's twin town, Munchengladbach, were there to celebrate. The book also raises concerns about the speed of the inquiry and the fact that it commenced a few weeks after the fire and lasted for only a few days, whereas other inquiries into similar incidents, pre and post the Bradford fire, have taken years to come to fruition and months to be heard. They stood outside the headquarters, staring at nothing in particular. 1909 - Flores Theater fire, Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, on February 15, killed 250. [4], Although there had been some changes to other parts of the ground, the main stand remained unaltered by 1985. Those are the words of David Pendleton, a survivor of the Bradford City fire disaster, which happened 30 years ago. "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. [29] The Health and Safety Executive who were also part of the legal action were found to be non-liable. And all you could smell was burning.". It spelt out 'thank you fans'. Steel was to be installed in the roof,[8] and the wooden terracing was to be replaced with concrete. "I saw people die in the stand - but it was only until then that I realised the scale of it.". "If we were fed a lie about it being an accident, then we will be educated. At 3.40pm, television commentator John Helm remarked upon a small fire in the main stand; in less than four minutes, with the windy conditions, the fire had engulfed the whole stand, trapping some people in their seats. Bradford fan Matthew Wildman, who was aged 17 and using crutches because of rheumatoid arthritis: "When I got to one of the final walls, there was an eight-foot drop at the other side, concrete at the bottom. Many were burnt to death at the turnstiles gates, which had also been locked after the match had begun. At the time, however, Harrison says, Bradford just wanted to move on. A call was made on a police radio to the police operations room in Bradford and relayed to the fire brigade at 3.43 pm. Most of the fans who took this escape route were killed or seriously injured. "[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. "That's when I thought 'this is time to get out of here'. Pendleton: "I got pushed down to the front and I remember looking around and suddenly this smouldering, small fire had taken over virtually half a block and was starting to hit the roof. People pushed him to the ground and tried to smother the flames. It wasn't until later on when assistant manager Terry Yorath came in and said: 'It's not good.'". It was clear from what the Chief Fire Officer for West Yorkshire, Mr Graham Karran, said yesterday that the ground was far from safe.

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