“It has never left me,” Turnbull, then the coroner for West Yorkshire, says. He was still in his gardening clothes when he got to Valley Parade and will never forget what he saw. James Turnbull was putting up a greenhouse when the telephone rang. This is the story of the Bradford fire disaster, told through their eyes. It is a story of unthinkable loss, with only the briefest of inquiries, a culture of neglect and so many unanswered questions that Delahunty, once regarded as “the voice of Bradford City”, is among those who considers it a national scandal as well as a tragedy. It was a horrific landmark in English football’s history of disasters and, ahead of the 35th anniversary on Monday, The Athletic has gathered the thoughts of some of the people who were prominently involved. Don’t rush! Don’t push! Wait for the kiddies.įifty-six people were killed in the fire that engulfed an old wooden stand at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground on the final day of the 1984-85 season. Hundreds of others were injured. In a statement West Yorkshire police said: "Should any evidence come to light which was not available to Her Majesty's Coroner at the original inquest, then we will consider it and take appropriate action.Let’s get all those people out of there. The force in charge of policing at the ground has said it will consider any new evidence in the case, reports Sky News. I do not believe there was any sort of cover-up and in fact the inquiry led to a lot of recommendations on stadiums that together with the Taylor report came up with the right answers for football." West Yorkshire police: "I think the inquiry was very thorough at the time and I don't think there needs to be another because of this. who flew by the seat of his pants" he said he did not believe a new inquiry was needed, reports the Daily Telegraph. The former sports minister was deputy leader of Bradford City council at the time of the disaster and although he described Stafford Heginbotham as "one of those football club chairmen. "I don't think it's going to affect what we decided but I think it is important from a public point of view that the police look at the other fires and see if there was anything sinister." Bradford MP Gerry Sutcliffe: However, he said that the other fires that affected Heginbotham's businesses should be investigated. "I'm sorry to spoil what is obviously a very good story, I'm afraid it's nonsense for many reasons," he told BBC Radio Leeds. Popplewell stands by his findings of 30 years ago. It concluded that the fire was started by a cigarette which ignited rubbish below the wooden stadium. Popplewell's four-week investigation was held weeks after the disaster, but did not hear evidence relating to Heginbotham's finances. The judge who led the inquiry into the Bradford stadium fire has told the BBC any suggestion that the blaze may have been started deliberately was "nonsense". "It's also a bit of a joke that, back in 1985, nobody picked up on the fact that Heginbotham – seemingly a one-man walking nightmare for insurance companies – had already recouped nearly a million pounds (£10m in today’s terms) before his club was rewarded with the further gift of £1.46m (worth £10.25m in today’s money) by the local authority, to take his total fire proceeds from his Bradford firms to £2.74m – or £27m in today’s adjusted terms."įletcher adds that the Valley Parade disaster also came at a time "when the businessman was in desperate financial trouble, unable to pay his workforce beyond that month," says the Guardian. "Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?" writes Fletcher in Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire. The Guardian says the book contains "extraordinary evidence" that has not been published before, and "reveals there had been at least eight other fires at business premises either owned by, or connected to, Stafford Heginbotham, Bradford’s then-chairman, in the previous 18 years, resulting in huge insurance claims".īut the paper is careful to note that Fletcher "does not make any direct allegations" against Heginbotham, but believes his record with fires warrants "further investigation". Martin Fletcher, who lost relatives from three generations of his family in the blaze, does not believe the fire was an accident and says his family are no longer prepared to live a "myth". The Bradford City fire, which claimed the lives of 56 football fans in 1985, is back in the headlines after The Guardian serialised a book by one of the survivors, which links the club's then chairman to at least eight other fires at businesses he owned or had connections to.
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