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. He was completely on fire and it looked as though he simply did not know what had happened to him.'. Former Bradford midfielder John Hendrie, who was playing in the match: "We had already won the league, all the hard work had been done. He was asked if precautions would have been adequate had the club been in the Second Division. It was a gruesome sight to see bodies still sitting upright in their seats, covered in tarpaulin. Spread by the wind, the wooden roof, which was covered with tarpaulin and sealed with asphalt and bitumen, caught fire. Lincoln City chairman Bob Dorrian, centre, is joined by Former Imps Players Association chairman Trevor Swinburne, left, and chairman of the Red Imps. The disaster led to rigid new safety standards in UK stadiums, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. [22], Immediately after the fire, Sharpe planned and treated the injuries of over 200 individuals, with many experimental treatments being used. There was a bit of paper on fire, but it was so small.". Hendrie: "Us players must have been in the tunnel for seconds - and I mean seconds. It is not thought that there was any crowd trouble in this section but one theory the police are investigating is that a flare or smoke-bomb was thrown or was accidentally dropped. "I was dragged on to the pitch and into a line of people, who couldn't do much for themselves and were lying there. This day was for them. People who had escaped the fire then tried to assist their fellow supporters. People ran onto the pitch with their clothes on fire while others were trapped at the back of the stand where they had gone to try to escape through the turnstiles. Many who had walked out of the fire stood on the pitch looking back in horror as the flames destroyed the stand. As the blaze spread, the wooden stands and roofcovered with layers of highly flammable bituminous roofing feltquickly went ablaze. Of the 56 people who died in the fire,[2] 54 were Bradford supporters and two supported Lincoln. 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? Last updated on 10 May 201510 May 2015.From the section Football, "People didn't die because of fires at football grounds. 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. But all the people being treated, we formed a family, a bond.". "[16] At the front of the stand, men threw children over the wall to help them escape. Now a new film claims an Australian was responsible for the worst . Police worked until 4am the next morning, under lighting, to remove all the bodies. [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. Burning timbers and molten materials fell from the roof onto the crowd and seating below, and dense black smoke enveloped a passageway behind the stand, where many spectators were trying to escape. The Bradford City stadium fire was the worst fire disaster in the history of football.. 'It is the worst day in my life. Burning Man.NYC. 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'. The Bradford way was keep it to ourselves - it worked collectively that we did that. The stand itself was engulfed in seconds, almost as if petrol had been ignited throughout the block. They wouldn't let us because then people would get in the way of fire engines, ambulances and police trying to get in. 'The smoke was very, very dense. 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. Some had been crushed as they tried to crawl under turnstiles to escape. Your brain tells you, you are not going anywhere. ', Sports reporters covering the game also spoke of the disaster. Helm: "The scene became progressively horrendous, grotesque, and I was having to describe things you couldn't possibly imagine.". 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. [8][9] In the crowd were local dignitaries and guests from three of Bradford's twin townsVerviers in Belgium, and Mnchengladbach and Hamm in West Germany. Pendleton: "Many people still don't want to talk about the disaster.
BBC News - Bradford fire 'will live with me forever' We had to run up the stairs, through the office doors and out on to the street.
"[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. The stadium was known for its antiquated design and facilities, which included the wooden roof of the main stand. There is no malicious vendetta, there is no over-exaggeration, there are no trumped-up facts. [11], The disaster also had a long-lasting effect on the fans. No one gave it the attention it ought to have received.. .. All that was left of the main stand were rows of bare steel and stone, with blackened timbers hanging from the few remaining roof supports. I had no idea. It was during this treatment that Sharpe began to develop the Bradford Sling,[21] which applies even pressure across sensitive areas. ", On 26 January 2016, the IPCC declined calls for an investigation and published its full response online. "It's therapeutic and I've met so many people through doing this." [1] When the association football club was formed, the ground was changed very little and had no covered accommodation. Christopher Hammond, who was 12 on the day, said on the 20th anniversary of the fire: "As a 12-year-old, it was easy to move on I didn't realise how serious it was until I looked at the press coverage over the next few days. Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter. "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.". 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. 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. Those with longer memories will also think of the Ibrox disaster of . Criticising Bradford City during the case, Mr. Michael Ogden QC, highlighted that the Club 'gave no or very little thought to fire precautions', despite repeated warnings. Today marks the 35th anniversary of one of the worst disasters in the history of British football.
Bradford City stadium fire: Police identify man who 'dropped the He was helped out of the stand by other fans and spent a period of time in hospital. "But the feeling here is that it is hard to believe that someone would purposefully start a fire. "The one thing I remember at the time is we were grateful that we got an answer quickly after the inquiry. The Bradford City disaster took place on Saturday May 11, 1985 when a flash fire occurred at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England. 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.
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. 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. That's when everybody else had the same thought. Led by former England international Trevor Cherry, the Bantams won only their third divisional title and earned a return to the second tier of English football for the first time since 1937. Eighty names were unaccounted for and there were no positive indications about the cause of the fire. Fletcher said that "The club at the time took no actual responsibility for its actions and nobody has ever really been held accountable for the level of negligence which took place. The Bradford way was keep it to ourselves - it worked collectively that we did that. "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. 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. Bradford City continues to support the burns unit at the University of Bradford as its official charity. It is impossible so far to be accurate about the precise cause of the fire, with grossly conflicting reports from witnesses. "All I could see was eerie white lights that the fire brigade had set up and the smoke still in the sky. 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. 'This was a dreadful afternoon. Together, flanked by undocumented supporters, they managed to clear all but one person who made it to the front of the stand. [47] Scriptwriters of the play spent hours with the survivors and victims families. Police removed the last body from the ground at 4 am yesterday, working under arc lights. " Burning Man," " Burning Man Project," " Black Rock City ", and . Those are the words of David Pendleton, a survivor of the Bradford City fire disaster, which happened 30 years ago. Police had an official photographer at the game, watching for crowd disturbance. 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. 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. [12] The work was expected to cost 400,000 (1.3million today). > Contacts> Join us> Circulars> Training courses> Sign up to Rollcall. 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. "As well as those who lost their lives or were injured, there are the relatives and friends, the others who were at the game, and those who would normally have gone to the match but decided not to that day. The man in charge of investigating the fire, Detective Superintendent Kevin Cooper was at the game. 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. Mike Harrison, the editor of the Bradford City Football Club fanzine The City Gent, was there on the day. Some of those who died were still sitting upright in their seats, covered by remnants of tarpaulin that had fallen from the roof.
Bradford City Stadium Fire - Saturday 11th May 1985 Just look at how many people were standing around just 50-60 meters away from the blazing inferno. [4] Football ground writer Simon Inglis had described the view from the stand as "like watching football from the cockpit of a Sopwith Camel" because of its antiquated supports and struts. Hundreds more telephoned the police to try to trace relatives. The stand slopes downwards from the South Parade. "[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'. Stories From 11 May. We were sat in our football kit, we didn't know what to do. Police officers also assisted in the rescue attempts. Fletcher has been the only survivor to publicly challenge the inquiry's findings. That duty was not a duty to the Club but a duty to the spectators and other persons in the stand. 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. We use necessary cookies to make our site work. And all you could smell was burning.". "A lot of investigative work had been done by the police when I got there. Sir Oliver Popplewell, the High Court judge who led the Valley Parade inquiry in 1985: "The scene when I arrived was horrendous. 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. There were queues of people outside houses, which obviously wouldn't happen nowadays. Everybody in the city was devastated, but there was an amazing number of volunteers. The courts held the club to be two thirds responsible, finding that it gave "no or very little thought to fire precautions" despite repeated warnings. [6] 1908 - Parker Building, New York City, January 10. 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 . Hendrie: "Several minutes before half-time I saw there was a wee bit of bother. An ancient wooden spectator stand and a dropped cigarette - the ingredients for one of Britain's deadliest soccer tragedies. The local council was deemed to be one third responsible. We didn't know how serious it was.". Representatives from the fire brigade were due to go to the club tomorrow to inspect it and see whether regulations were being observed. We wanted to record the trophy presentation.
**The Bradford City Stadium Tragedy** - Firehouse Fifty-six people died. I remember trying to make sense of what was going on. Watch Missed Warnings on BBC One in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire at 22:45 BST on Tuesday, 12 May. Following the hearing in 1986, a test case was brought against the club by David Britton, a police sergeant serving on the day, and by Susan Fletcher, who lost her husband John, 11-year-old son Andrew, John's brother Peter and his father Edmond in the fire. "It made me realise life is too short." An inquiry launched in the aftermath of the disaster led to legislation to improve safety at football grounds. We had not been told anything.".
The 1985 Bradford City Football Stadium Fire What Happened and Why [40] Matthew Wildman was 17 at the time and needed crutches to walk because of rheumatoid arthritis.
The 1985 Bradford City Stadium fire remembered - IFSEC Global At the final home match against Barnsley at the end of April, Bradford City fans collected more than 8,000 in a bucket collection. "I was burnt from top to bottom, on and off. Martin Fletcher, whose brother, father, grandfather and uncle all died in the fire: "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. All you could hear was sirens and screams. It has a black marble fascia on which the names and ages of those that died are inscribed in gold, and a black marble platform on which people can leave flowers and mementos. Within 48 hours of the disaster, the Bradford Disaster Appeal Fund had been set up and would eventually raise over 3.5m ($5.4m). Police officers also assisted in the rescue attempts. Mr Tony Delahunte, who was presenting a programme from the ground for Pennine Radio, said 'The fire seemed to me to start with a smoke bomb. England won the re-match 64. The scene in there was one of silence and shock. Today, locals continue to raise money for the Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit in memory of the victims of the fire. Only then do you realise the huge network of people the fire involved. It wasn't until later on when assistant manager Terry Yorath came in and said: 'It's not good.'". Most of those who escaped onto the pitch were saved.[10]. 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. It is repeated across the country on BBC Two at 23:20 BST on Wednesday, 13 May. 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. 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.
Bradford fire: The Valley Parade disaster 30 years on "We couldn't run back down the tunnel. "As a 15-year-old, you don't really know how much of an impact an event like that will have on your life," Town says. And the black and twisted skeleton of the burnt stand stood out in the night. He went on to state: "In 1985 fire investigation in Britain was in its infancy and some would say at that time most fire investigators were not much more than dust-kickers. Funnily enough I was thinking 'I'm going to miss the second half at this rate'. Valley Parade during the early 1990s, after it had been redeveloped following the fire. 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. This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 13:41. "That's when I thought 'this is time to get out of here'. 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
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