"The one thing I remember at the time is we were grateful that we got an answer quickly after the inquiry. This included the banning of new wooden grandstands at all sports venues in the UK. Bradford City had just won the Third Division Championship and a record number of spectators over 11,000 had turned out to see the club presented with its first piece of league silverware in 56 years. Fletcher has been the only survivor to publicly challenge the inquiry's findings. Last edited: May 11, 2021 May 11, 2019 #2 JohnnyKills Full Member Joined Jan 8, 2016 Messages 6,902 Yeah footage is horrendous isn't it. It was the brainchild of Bradford City fan Lloyd Spencer with all profits going to the Bradford Royal Infirmary Burns Unit.[43]. Bradford City stadium fire: The untold stories of the 1985 fire that devastated Valley Parade Thirty years after football's 'forgotten tragedy', the truth of what exactly happened when 56. "It is the little things that show how much people are still involved the fire still has a big impact on people. One man clambered over burning seats to help a fan, as did player John Hawley, and one officer led fans to an exit, only to find it shut and turn around.Bradford City's coach Terry Yorath, whose family was in the stand, ran onto the pitch to help evacuate people. 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. I'd seen the film on the Saturday but the bleakness of the stadium burnt out, and the gloom that afflicted everybody, was dreadful. Guided by the values expressed by the 10 Principles, Burning Man is a global ecosystem of artists, makers, and community organizers who co-create art, events, and local initiatives around the world. Police had an official photographer at the game, watching for crowd disturbance. Now they will begin another inquiry, into the cause of the Bradford fire. More than 250 others were injured in one of the. This day was for them. And then suddenly, in the space of 120-odd seconds, it really kicked in. 1.7M subscribers in the CatastrophicFailure community. Artist Paul Town, who now lives in Baildon, was 15 at the time of the fire. [8], The Bradford City matchday squad of players and staff consisted of Terry Yorath, Trevor Cherry, Chris Withe, Don Goodman, Eric McManus, Tony Clegg, John Hawley, Dave Evans, Bryan Edwards, John Hendrie, Mark Ellis, Stuart McCall, Peter Jackson, Bobby Campbell, Martin Singleton and Greg Abbott. The match was recorded by Yorkshire Television for their regional edition of the ITV Sunday afternoon football show The Big Match. It was fairly clear that somebody had dropped a lighted match or cigarette between the floorboards.". '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.'. [10] The call was timed at 3:43pm. We sat in the main stand the week before, but we had decided to move on that day," he says. Valley Parade in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was built in 1886 and was initially the home ground of Manningham Rugby Football Club. After 40 minutes of the first half, fans had begun to complain about the drab match and the 0-0 score. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. About 3,000 people were in Valley Parade's main stand, escaping by climbing over walls on to the pitch or through the usual exit gates. 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. We use necessary cookies to make our site work. "Me and my dad eventually got out safely but it was a bit of a struggle at one point because the walls getting down to the pitch level were quite high I didn't get a growth spurt until I was 16 or 17.". Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. Stories From 11 May. 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. The fire at a Brooklyn lumber storage building sent plumes of smoke over Williamsburg on Tuesday. Watch Missed Warnings on BBC One in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 22:45 BST on Tuesday, 12 May. Others ran forward to try to clamber over a fence and a small wall on to the pitch. A Bradford Disaster Appeal Fund raised 3.5m for the victims and their families. 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. 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. One man in tears said: 'He looked as if he was just going for a stroll. She was hysterical and trying to find her three children. Original television coverage of the fire, as caught by cameras covering the match. There were many cases of heroism, with more than 50 people later receiving police awards or commendations for bravery. "[28], West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council was found to have failed in its duty under the Fire Precautions Act 1971. "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. They were not able to use water on the stand immediately because this would have hampered attempts to rescue people being dragged by the police and friends from the stand. 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. The inquiry had found that the club had been warned that the accumulation of rubbish beneath the stands was a fire risk. The match, Bradford against Lincoln, was to have been a joyous climax to the club winning the Third Division championship and being promoted to the Second Division. 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. People had walked through turnstiles and along a wooden corridor before descending the steps into their seats. He was asked if precautions would have been adequate had the club been in the Second Division. I don't see that. It was to be our day,' he said. [10][16] Geoffrey Mitchell said: "There was panic as fans stampeded to an exit which was padlocked. [34], During the case, Sir Joseph Cantley stated that: "It is only right that I should say that I think it would be unfair to conclude that Heginbotham, Tordoff, the Board of Directors, or any of them, were intentionally and callously indifferent to the safety of spectators using the stand. We went there to win the last game in front of a home crowd. The main stand at Valley Parade burned down after what was thought to be a dropped cigarette led to flames which engulfed the entire wooden structure. Yet many of those with terrible memories of the tragedy also take heart in the compassion born out of the devastation. The man in charge of investigating the fire, Detective Superintendent Kevin Cooper was at the game. It spelt out 'thank you fans'. After Hillsborough, the Bradford City FC stadium fire was the second worst sporting tragedy in England, leaving 56 dead and at least 265 injured. > Contacts> Join us> Circulars> Training courses> Sign up to Rollcall. 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. "I saw people die in the stand - but it was only until then that I realised the scale of it.". We were sat in our football kit, we didn't know what to do. Witnesses of the fire have come to terms with the tragedy in different ways. Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. The speed at which fire engulfs the entire stand is insane. 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. We couldn't breathe. The stand had no perimeter fencing to keep fans from accessing the pitch, thus averting an instance of crush asphyxia as in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. [45] In total, 28 police officers and 22 supporters, who were publicly documented as having saved at least one life, later received police commendations or bravery awards. Tarpaulin fell on them and stuck to their clothes and then ignited. Some days I had two operations in a day. I asked the director to get the camera to go a little closer. Bradford, playing into a strong wind, were struggling to break down a Lincoln side already safe from relegation. [57] Following the 30th anniversary of the fire, a number of news organisations named this man as Eric Bennett who was visiting his nephew in Bradford from Australia and attended the game on the day. Pendleton: "I walked past a public telephone outside the ground and there were queues of people waiting to ring home to say: 'I'm OK'. 05/10/15 AT 12:00 PM BST Crowds on the pitch at Bradford City's Valley Parade stadium after the stand caught fire Getty Images Fifty-six people were killed, 265 were injured and thousands. It remains to be seen whether a new investigation will take place. 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. [10][11], Bradford's Telegraph & Argus newspaper published a souvenir issue for 11 May, entitled, "Spit and Polish for the Parade Ground". 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. We were given the trophy before the game in front of the supporters and had to do a lap of honour. [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. He saw smoke coming from a small area of the stand and thought that someone had let off a flare. "We went out on to the pitch and I could see so many happy faces. Mike Harrison, the editor of the Bradford City Football Club fanzine The City Gent, was there on the day. BurningMan.NYC will announce the dates and process for the 2023 grant cycle on this site & all BurningMan.NYC social channels in early Spring. 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. [56], On 17 April 2015, retired Detective Inspector Raymond Falconer, in a report by the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, said the police were aware of an Australian man who admitted to starting the fire. [53], In 1986, a year after the disaster, Yorkshire Television aired a documentary presented by John Helm entitled Bradford City A Year of Healing. "The letters that went to the club, the council's failings, the police's failings, even as supporters we allowed a culture where the gates were locked. The fact the inquiry also embraced the investigation into another incident which happened on the same day, a riot in which a young boy died at Birmingham City, makes it seem more frivolous. It is impossible so far to be accurate about the precise cause of the fire, with grossly conflicting reports from witnesses. Although some attributed Lincoln City's sudden demise to the psychological effects of the fire on its players (together with the resignation of successful manager Colin Murphy shortly before the fire), it symbolised the wider crisis that the introduction of new safety legislation brought to Lincoln's Sincil Bank home. He started to walk home, unsure of what had happened to his father. He later died in hospital. He photographed the blaze from start to finish and the police will use this as evidence when an inquest is held. A police officer shouted to a colleague for an extinguisher, but his call was misheard and instead the fire brigade were radioed. They wouldn't let us because then people would get in the way of fire engines, ambulances and police trying to get in. ", "If the inquiry is opened again, we will await to see what evidence there is to prove is wasn't an accident," he says. Supporters either ran upwards to the back of the stand or downwards to the pitch to escape. [52], On 1 May 2010, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fire the football TV show Football Focus was hosted from Valley Parade by Dan Walker, the show included interviews with Terry Yorath and John Hendrie. 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. Following his own 15 year investigation Into the fire, which killed four of his family members while he escaped, former tax accountant Martin Fletcher released 56: The Story of the Bradford Fire (2015). The whole fire seemed to erupt in seconds,' he said. The game was irrelevant.". His most recent painting is a powerful image; two fans in Bradford and Lincoln City kits, surrounded by 54 other figures. Bradford City continues to support the burns unit at the University of Bradford as its official charity. It took the firemen four minutes to arrive at the ground but the speed of the fire was such that the blaze also took only four minutes to grip the entire stand. "I've always loved art but I owned businesses in construction so I've never had the time or a chance to follow it up," he says. One letter from the council said the problems "should be rectified as soon as possible"; a second said: "A carelessly discarded cigarette could give rise to a fire risk." 56 dead and hundreds more injured. I saw a group of people around the smoke laughing. It was later established that the blaze was caused by a fan who went to put his cigarette out but dropped it between the floorboards onto a . Footage of the accident at this point shows levels of confusion among the spectatorswhile many were trying to escape or to cross the pitch to the relative safety of the neighbouring stands, other spectators were observed cheering or waving to the still-rolling pitchside cameras. 'This was a dreadful afternoon. The Documentary highlighted the 'poison pen letters' and graffiti targeted at the then club chairman Stafford Heginbotham over accusations that he was in some way personally responsible for the deaths of the 56 people who died at the fire.[54]. The fire claimed young and old alike, with most fatalities occurring at the rear of the stand where people sought escape only to find turnstiles locked. I've never seen anything like it. We went there to win the last game in front of a home crowd. "[11] Police Superintendent Barry Osborne, divisional commander for the area, said many of his officers cried when they saw how badly people had been burned. Television cameras spotted the outbreak of fire in Valley Parade's main stand at 15:40 BST. "All you could see was black cloud. "We couldn't run back down the tunnel. Stadium disasters have blighted the world of sport throughout modern history. An ancient wooden spectator stand and a dropped cigarette - the ingredients for one of Britain's deadliest soccer tragedies. Someone came in and shouted: 'Get out, get out there's a fire'. ", Hendrie: "We stayed in the pub for hours. I remember trying to make sense of what was going on. A fire at a third division match between Bradford City and Lincoln City killed 56, including 11 children, and injured hundreds more. The 4-alarm fire started in a one-story lumber storage building and spread to an adjacent building . People were clambering over the wall on to the ground with their clothes and hair on fire. Samuel Firth, a founder of the supporters' club, was the oldest victim at 86; four 11-year-old boys were the youngest. Some people seem to have run back up the slope, thinking that they could get back through the turnstiles, and were burned alive. I looked down and I saw my hands melting. [11], The fire escalated very rapidly, and flames became visible; police started to evacuate the stand. The two sides met for the first time after the fire in April 1989, when they arranged a benefit match in aid of the Hillsborough disaster, at Valley Parade. Radiated heat from the burning roof of the stand set fire to the clothing of fans trapped underneath. Exactly 79 years to the day after the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, another tragic fire occurred in New York City. The man we see at 7:50 walking out onto the pitch on fire was a retired mill worker. The government inquiry into the disaster concluded the fire spread "faster than a man could run". "For the first minute people were laughing and joking, it wasn't anything serious. However, when Bradford City won promotion to the highest level of English football, Division One, in 1908, club officials sanctioned an upgrade programme. Steel was to be installed in the roof,[8] and the wooden terracing was to be replaced with concrete. "[23], On the 25th anniversary of the fire, the University of Bradford established the United Kingdom's largest academic research centre in skin sciences as an extension to its plastic surgery and burns research unit.[24]. 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. Only then do you realise the huge network of people the fire involved. Listen to Valley Parade: Bradford City Fire Remembered on BBC Radio Leeds (18:00 BST) and BBC Radio 5 live (21:00 BST). [10] One eyewitness, Geoffrey Mitchell, told the BBC: "It spread like a flash. The only fire extinguishers in the ground were in the clubroom, which is also in the main stand. The stories of escapes are legion. A minute later he saw a small plume of smoke so he poured his coffee on it and so did his son. The stand had already been condemned, and the demolition teams were due to start work two days later. Wildman: "I was burnt from top to bottom, on and off. But looking back and seeing how much it really affected my dad makes me realise what we went through." Fifty-six people were killed, 265 were injured and thousands bore witness to the worst fire disaster in the history of English football. However, the responsibility of the Club is, in my view, very much the greater and I apportion responsibility between the two defendants as to two-thirds on the first defendant and one-third on the third (sic) defendant. Interviews conducted by BBC Radio Leeds' Tim Daley. Like you, we're already preparing for Black Rock City to rise again. [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. ", IBT UK Morning Brief - Let the best of International News come to you. "[16] At the front of the stand, men threw children over the wall to help them escape. We were sat in our football kit, we didn't know what to do. It is a simple account laid out for all to see. Owing to windy conditions, less than four minutes later the entire wooden stand was engulfed in smoke and fire. ", ITV football commentator John Helm, who provided live commentary of the unfolding disaster across the nation: "We wouldn't normally have covered that game - no question about it. The heat inside the stand literally ignited people where they stood. The Bradford way was keep it to ourselves - it worked collectively that we did that. ", "There was a throw-in in front of the stand where the fire started - something caught my eye. Helm: "The scene became progressively horrendous, grotesque, and I was having to describe things you couldn't possibly imagine.". People were wandering around outside the ground in disbelief, reminiscent of an air disaster, at what had happened the day before. 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. The flames suddenly appeared and the whole roof took alight,' he said. [27], Explaining his decision, Sir Joseph Cantley stated: "As I have already stated, the primary duty was on the Club and the functions of the County Council were supervisory and its liability is for negligent breach of a common law duty arising out of the way in which they dealt with or ignored their statutory powers. 05/12/15 AT 9:58 AM BST Crowds on the pitch at the Valley Parade stadium after a stand caught fire Getty Images Police have revealed the identity of the man who they believe was responsible. Somebody looked round and grabbed me by the hood of my coat to pull me over. This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 13:41. 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. he asks. Although I was only 12 at the time, 11 May 1985 is a day. Once we went out it was mayhem, manic, chaotic. The Bradford Disaster Appeal fund, set up within 48hours of the disaster, eventually raised over 3.5million (11.3million today). At the final home match against Barnsley at the end of April, Bradford City fans collected more than 8,000 in a bucket collection. 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. More than 250 others were injured in one of the biggest disasters at a British football ground. "I was in the main stand when the fire happened," he says. Yet in 2015, allegations surfaced which shifted the focus to the club's then chairman, Stafford Heginbotham. [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. All you could hear was sirens and screams. 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. [36], In 2010, Susan Fletcher's son and survivor of the Bradford City fire (and witness to the Hillsborough disaster), Martin Fletcher, openly criticised the club's hierarchy at the time of the fire and the subsequent investigation. I have never had to deal with such a situation before, and this has put the city on its heels.'. [8][10] Three men smashed down one door and at least one exit was opened by people outside, which again helped prevent further deaths. Those are the words of David Pendleton, a survivor of the Bradford City fire disaster, which happened 30 years ago. [11] Those who escaped were taken out of the ground to neighbouring homes and a pub, where a television screened World of Sport, which broadcast video recorded of the fire just an hour after it was filmed. Hendrie: "Us players must have been in the tunnel for seconds - and I mean seconds. 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. 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. Thirty years on, the majority of survivors still find it too difficult to talk about what happened at the Valley Parade on 11 May 1985. The fire brigade said that when heat builds up so quickly it can cause flames to move much quicker than people can walk. The next day work began on clearing the burnt out shell of the stand, and Justice Popplewell released his findings into the disaster. [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. 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. Wealso use analytics cookies that don't track usersto help us improve it. It made me realise life is too short and I'm a happier person for it.". The smoke was choking. Read about our approach to external linking. He was actually one of the detectives involved in one of the gravest miscarriages of justices in the country, the murder of Carol Wilkinson in Bradford, where someone was locked up for 20 years for a murder he didn't commit."[60]. We wanted to record the trophy presentation. However, the fire had consumed the stand entirely by that point and they were faced with huge flames and very dense smoke. 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. [26], In July 1985, an inquest was held into the deaths; at the hearings the coroner James Turnbull recommended a death by misadventure outcome, with which the jury agreed. "Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?" 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 According to ABC News, though, several hundred people in the Chinese city of Luoyang decided to cut loose on Christmas night 2000 by heading to a nightclub housed on the fourth floor of a multi-use industrial building.A fire broke out in the basement of the structure . At Valley Parade there are now two memorials. Most of the fans who took this escape route were killed or seriously injured. Treatment of casualties and Burns Research Unit, Dramatisations, documentaries and published works, West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of accidents and disasters by death toll, List of United Kingdom disasters by death toll, "Hideous images linger after carnage of 'celebration' day", "Caught in Time: Bradford City win the Third Division, 1985", "EXCLUSIVE: Bradford's Valley Parade fire must be remembered like Hillsborough", "History of The Bradford Sling The Bradford Sling", "Bradford City football stadium blaze surgeon honoured", "Research centre to be living memorial to Bradford City FC fire disaster", "The Papers of the Popplewell Inquiry into Crowd Safety at Sports Grounds", "Popplewell Inquiry Bradford City Fire", "Bradford remembered: The unheeded warnings that led to tragedy", Joseph Canley summing up statement from test case court transcripts, Newspaper report from Sport and the Law April 21st 1989, "The Glasgow Herald Google News Archive Search", Los Angeles Times report on Bradford City test case findings, Court transcript from the test case brought by Susan Fletcher and Others against Bradford City and Others, "Bradford fire survivor attacks judge over Hillsborough comments", "The Story of the Bradford Fire: 'could any man really be as unlucky as Stafford Heginbotham? 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. His son Christopher normally watches from the stand but on Saturday he joined other fans elsewhere. Since 1903, when the club was formed, Bradford City Association Football Club had played their home games at the ground. Bradford fire: the horrors and the silence that had to be broken Daniel Taylor The policewoman assigned to the grieving Fletchers gets goosebumps when she looks back to 30 years ago. 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. In March 1985 the club's plans became more apparent when it took delivery of steel for a new roof. He asks the reader to make their mind up about whether these fires were a coincidence or not.". Earlier this year, Town gave up working in construction to pursue painting full-time through his business Stadium Portraits. The sling is now used internationally in the treatment of burns. It wasn't just something that happened in the past.". It was an awful thing to watch.". Within 48 hours of the disaster, the Bradford Disaster Appeal Fund had been set up and would eventually raise over 3.5m ($5.4m). What Is Burning Man? Smoke was seen coming from the third row in the section but people are apparently used to seeing smoke flares on the Bradford ground.