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Pendleton: "Many people still don't want to talk about the disaster. 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. There were queues of people outside houses, which obviously wouldn't happen nowadays. What Is Burning Man? Witnesses of the fire have come to terms with the tragedy in different ways. Hendrie: "Several minutes before half-time I saw there was a wee bit of bother. Wildman: "I was burnt from top to bottom, on and off. "That was the legacy of the tragedy. Below the seats were rows of litter which had piled up throughout the season, said witnesses. Exactly 79 years to the day after the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, another tragic fire occurred in New York City. "How quickly the fire spread is difficult to convey to people.". Bradford City initially prospered in the Second Division only missing out on promotion to the First Division in 1988 after failing to beat Ipswich Town at home on the final day of their first full season back at Valley Parade. Steel was to be installed in the roof,[8] and the wooden terracing was to be replaced with concrete. BBC ON THIS DAY | 11 | 1985: Fans killed in Bradford stadium fire People had walked through turnstiles and along a wooden corridor before descending the steps into their seats. Brooklyn fire: Lumber storage warehouse in Williamsburg goes up in Eighty names were unaccounted for and there were no positive indications about the cause of the fire. ", Hendrie: "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. Then the flames and smoke were all over the place.'. "All I could see was eerie white lights that the fire brigade had set up and the smoke still in the sky. Funnily enough I was thinking 'I'm going to miss the second half at this rate'. **The Bradford City Stadium Tragedy** - Firehouse Former Bradford midfielder John Hendrie, who was playing in the match: "We had already won the league, all the hard work had been done. 1985 disaster in Valley Parade Stadium, Bradford, England. However as the game against Lincoln progressed, a fire began just before half-time in the stand that ran alongside the pitch. The worst fire disaster in English football history played out on live television on May 11, after Valley Parade's main stand caught fire during a match between Bradford City and Lincoln City on . Previous warnings had also been given about a major build-up of litter in the cavity below the seats in the stand. 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. 24 Bradford City A.F.C. It was fairly clear that somebody had dropped a lighted match or cigarette between the floorboards.". Some days I had two operations in a day. Tarpaulin fell on them and stuck to their clothes and then ignited. 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His face was burned and his car, which he had parked outside the ground, was destroyed. 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. 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 . The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the fire risk that the rubbish accumulating under the stand had posed. "The one thing I remember at the time is we were grateful that we got an answer quickly after the inquiry. The disaster led to rigid new safety standards in UK stadiums, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. "I remember not being able to watch it, but we couldn't get out. The extinguishers were put there so that they would be out of the way of fans who could use them as missiles, which apparently had happened previously. I remember trying to make sense of what was going on. 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. 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 pile of rubbish that had been building up below. [10] The call was timed at 3:43pm. Videos, gifs, or aftermath photos of machinery, structures, or devices "I looked up and saw the flames. And then suddenly, in the space of 120-odd seconds, it really kicked in. Bradford City stadium fire disaster remembered - BBC Sport 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. ", Hendrie: "We stayed in the pub for hours. 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". The playing area and stands were very basic but the ground had enough room for 18,000spectators. Christmas Day is supposed to be happy and pleasant, a time to gather with loved ones for a chill and relaxing celebration. Fletcher has been the only survivor to publicly challenge the inquiry's findings. As he received the injured at Bradford Royal Infirmary he was able to call upon 10% of the UK's population of plastic surgeons. 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. Bradford City fire: Police reveal who was responsible for 1985 Valley [10] One eyewitness, Geoffrey Mitchell, told the BBC: "It spread like a flash. Hundreds more telephoned the police to try to trace relatives. 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. Bradford City fire was started by a tourist who dropped a cigarette They were at fault, but the fault was that no-one in authority seems ever to have properly appreciated the real gravity of this fire hazard and consequently no-one gave it the attention it certainly ought to have received. 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 only fire extinguishers in the ground were in the clubroom, which is also in the main stand. [47] Scriptwriters of the play spent hours with the survivors and victims families. It is impossible so far to be accurate about the precise cause of the fire, with grossly conflicting reports from witnesses. "Until I arrived home my mum and my brother had no idea whether I was alive or dead. Spread by the wind, the wooden roof, which was covered with tarpaulin and sealed with asphalt and bitumen, caught fire. The timber construction of St. Andrew's Stand, Main Stand and the roof of its popular Railway End terrace were immediately condemned as fire hazards, which saw seating capacity briefly cut to nil. "Some of the local residents opened their houses so people could make phone calls. One man in tears said: 'He looked as if he was just going for a stroll. "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.". Football architect Archibald Leitch was commissioned to carry out the work. Instead it turned into a day of appalling tragedy. 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. Sir Oliver Popplewell, the High Court judge who led the Valley Parade inquiry in 1985: "The scene when I arrived was horrendous. Bradford City Stadium Fire: The Forgotten Fire Tragedy of 1985 that Some had been crushed as they tried to crawl under turnstiles to escape. In those days there was a lot of hooliganism and violence, so my initial thought was: 'I hope it has not kicked off - that's the last thing we need'. "[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'. Saturday began for the fans in a carnival atmosphere at Bradford 's Valley Parade ground a short walk from the city centre. Now they will begin another inquiry, into the cause of the Bradford fire. "We went out on to the pitch and I could see so many happy faces. 'They did not have a chance. Eight fires in the 18 years before the Bradford City fire were identified, many catastrophic and leading to large insurance payouts. 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. At the final home match against Barnsley at the end of April, Bradford City fans collected more than 8,000 in a bucket collection. [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. "I'm taking the opportunity to lay out the facts that were not laid out in 1985 at the time of the inquiry or the inquests. Those are the words of David Pendleton, a survivor of the Bradford City fire disaster, which happened 30 years ago. 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. "One of my most haunting images was being on the bus home after dark and going past Valley Parade. I saw one man lying on the ground, burning from head to foot. It wasn't until later on when assistant manager Terry Yorath came in and said: 'It's not good.'". Pendleton: "One of my most haunting images was being on the bus home after dark and going past Valley Parade. 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. Bradford fire: The Valley Parade disaster 30 years on [16] Messages of condolence were also received from Helmut Kohl, Chedli Klibi and Felipe Gonzlez. The Bradford City Stadium Fire 1985 - The Football Inferno Bradford City stadium fire. A football match in Bradford UK ends "[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. Parents and children were laughing and joking with the police as the preliminaries to the game began. [48] Profits from the play's run at The Edinburgh Fringe were donated to the Bradford Burns Unit. [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. It made me realise life is too short and I'm a happier person for it.". The money raised from this record was contributed to fund the internationally renowned burns unit that was established in partnership between the University of Bradford and Bradford Royal Infirmary, immediately after the fire, which has also been Bradford City's official charity for well over a decade. Valley Parade during the early 1990s, after it had been redeveloped following the fire. The blame was through neglect, they didn't have the money to maintain the stand. [1] When the association football club was formed, the ground was changed very little and had no covered accommodation. Each year Lincoln send representatives to the annual memorial service in Bradford city centre and between 2007 and 2009, were managed by Bradford's captain that day, Peter Jackson. 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.