Bradford City disaster

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The Bradford City Disaster occurred on Saturday May 11, 1985 when a flash fire started at the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, England. The fire broke out during a football match between home team Bradford City and Lincoln City. On that day, Bradford City were celebrating winning the Football League Third Division trophy.

1 Buildup to the disaster
2 The Disaster
3 Aftermath
4 Controversy
5 Further reading
6 External links

[edit] Buildup to the disaster

Bradford City had enjoyed a successful 1984/85 season in the Football League Third Division, and by May 11th had secured enough points in the league to be crowned champions, gaining promotion to the Football League Second Division for 1985/86. With Bradford already champions, and Lincoln safely occupying mid-table, the game was effectively meaningless, a sideshow to a day of celebration for Bradford City.

11,076 supporters packed Valley Parade, to see the club crowned league champions. Prior to the game, the Bradford team did a lap of honour and club captain Peter Jackson was presented with the Third Division trophy.

For the first 40 minutes of the game, the two sides played out a goalless draw before the disaster unfolded.

[edit] The Disaster

The fire started when a fan disposed of a cigarette in a polystyrene cup, which fell underneath the stands and into the pile of rubbish that had been accumulating there over the years. With a few minutes to go before half-time, smoke was seen to be rising from the rear of the 77-year-old wooden main stand. At 3:40pm, fire-fighting equipment was requested and shortly thereafter, police began to evacuate fans from Block G, the area of the main stand that was on fire.

By this time the fire was starting to spread, and increasing numbers of fans had to escape onto the pitch to avoid the flames. With the flames spreading, match referee Don Shaw of Sandbach stopped the match with three minutes of the first half remaining. (For the records, the Football Association opted to declare the match a 0-0 draw and did not ask for the match to be replayed.)

By this time though, all thoughts of the match were forgotten. Fuelled by the piles of rubbish that had been accumulating underneath the stand, and by the wooden construction of the stand, the fire took hold rapidly. A flash fire engulfed the entire main stand within five minutes. Whilst many escaped onto the pitch, others located towards the back of stand attempted to escape from fire exits at the rear of the stand, however they found that the exit doors were locked, to prevent ticketless fans from gaining entry. Many of the fatalies were found near the fire exits. To make matters worse, the stand's wooden roof was also ablaze, with burning debris raining down on fans trying to escape. Ironically, the steel to replace the roof of the stand the following Monday was lying in the car park behind it.

In the carnage, there were many acts of heroism amongst both police and supporters. Fans who had escaped the fire switched their attentions to saving fellow supporters, with 22 supporters later receiving bravery awards. Whilst most fans stood on the pitch looking on in horror, a handful of fans were singing and dancing on the pitch, unaware of the scale of the disaster that was unfolding before their eyes.

Due to its wooden construction, the stand was completely consumed by flames within minutes. 56 people died and over two hundred were injured.

[edit] Aftermath

The inquiry into the disaster, the Popplewell Inquiry, led to the introduction of new legislation to improve safety at the UK's football grounds. One of the main outcomes of the inquiry was the banning of wooden grandstands at Football League grounds.

The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the rubbish accumulating under the stand. However, as there was no real precedent, most Bradfordians accepted that the fire was a terrible piece of misfortune. A discarded cigarette and a dilapidated stand, that had survived because the club simply didn't have the money to replace it, had conspired to cause the worst disaster in the history of the Football League.

An appeals fund was set up within 48 hours of the disaster, eventually raising £4 million, part of which was raised by a cover version by The Crowd of the Gerry & The Pacemakers hit You'll Never Walk Alone, which reached number 1 in the UK Singles chart.

Following the disaster, Valley Parade was extensively re-developed, and re-opened on 14th December 1986, when Bradford City played an England XI in a reopening friendly. Since then it has been further re-developed and today Valley Parade stands as a modern 25,000 seater stadium, virtually unrecognisable from how it was at the time of the disaster. A memorial sits near to the ground, to remember those who perished.

Of the 56 who died, two were supporters of the visiting Lincoln City side, Bill Stacey and Jim West. As a memorial, Lincoln City named its home end at their Sincil Bank ground the 'Stacey-West Stand' when it was redeveloped in 1990.

[edit] Controversy

There was some controversy regarding the disaster in early 2007, when graphic TV footage of the disaster was illegally posted on internet site You Tube. Following threats of legal action from ITV Yorkshire, and considerable protest from Bradford City supporters' groups (with endorsemt from the club itself), the footage was removed. The TV footage of that day's events is strictly controlled by ITV Yorkshire and is used in fire awareness training for sports grounds.