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Deleted member 2719
Guest
Sorry to hear that.
It was a very sad day and i am sure it effects people still on a daily basis.
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Bradford City FC
- Thread starter Publius Ovidius
- Start date
Sorry to hear that.
It was a very sad day and i am sure it effects people still on a daily basis.
Find My Past genealogy website lists 4163 records for the surname and mentions most live in Yorkshire. His Wiki page doesn't mention any relatives involved.
Wardy's twin
Well-known member
- Oct 21, 2014
- 8,443
Truly shocking day and one remembered by many fans. RIP to those that dies.
surlyseagull
Well-known member
- Aug 23, 2008
- 839
I can remember going into the ground in the south stand at the Goldsone and seeing all the paper and rubbish underneath and thinking jeez if that went up we would be in trouble.
And at Fulham,Bournemouth to name but a couple of grounds where some of the stands were wooden and people were smoking .....makes you realise how far public safety has come
Yes kind off brings it home does Bradford R.I.P
And at Fulham,Bournemouth to name but a couple of grounds where some of the stands were wooden and people were smoking .....makes you realise how far public safety has come
Yes kind off brings it home does Bradford R.I.P
Official Old Man
Uckfield Seagull
I'd like to think that times and grounds have changed since the 70's & 80's, but in reality they haven't. I will start with Fulham. I had to move to one side (and I wasn't the only one) because the crush to get out was frightening. There is a law that a stand needs to be emptied within a certain time but many PL and lower league grounds are death traps.
Easy 10
Brain dead MUG SHEEP
In reality, they have. The introduction of all-seater and the tightening of health and safety standards has meant we have not had a major incident causing mass loss of life at a British stadium since Hillsborough.
Large crowds will inevitably cause crushes (of sorts) when thousands of people are contained in an area, and all wanting to leave at the same time. But the numbers in each area are controlled far better these days. I've been going to football home and away since 1988, and can only recall what I would call two real crushes when I was genuinely worried. The North Stand for the the Liverpool replay in 1991, and the Fratton Park away end one year, possibly early 90's, when the only exit available was a small door-width opening at the front.
Since those days, our football grounds are unrecognisable. Some may still be very old, but they won't get a safety certificate if they're not safe.
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Easy 10
Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Cheers. The name is more common than I thought then.
Ernest
Stupid IDIOT
I always thought we were lucky the South Stand burnt down after a game rather than during it, not sure how anyone could have escaped from that in a panic with the fences at the front
The name that stands out for me is Fletcher as I remember the name Susan Fletcher. She didn't go to the game but her menfolk did, and by the end of the afternoon she'd lost a son, her husband, her brother-in-law and father-in-law. Another son survived iirc. How do you deal with that? Her story really affected me.
Raleigh Chopper
New member
Bradford are an amazing and great club.
When you think of northern clubs most will say Bradford last or forget them totally,up against much bigger well known clubs yet look at their support, home and away over many years, it's incredible.
They have been up and down the leagues but I have never seen a bad mention on here or anywhere else that they hate Bradford or their fans, not one.
Maybe someone with more knowledge than me can argue these points but maybe I am wrong in labelling most Yorkshire folk as loud mouthed, know all, cocky *******, a disservice to Bradford fans, real fans.
When you think of northern clubs most will say Bradford last or forget them totally,up against much bigger well known clubs yet look at their support, home and away over many years, it's incredible.
They have been up and down the leagues but I have never seen a bad mention on here or anywhere else that they hate Bradford or their fans, not one.
Maybe someone with more knowledge than me can argue these points but maybe I am wrong in labelling most Yorkshire folk as loud mouthed, know all, cocky *******, a disservice to Bradford fans, real fans.
Ernest
Stupid IDIOT
Always was a good day out there and the pubs were so hot that some girls insisted on taking all their clothes off in them
I heard first hand experiences from two people who were there. First an Englishman I met in France who still had the burn scars on his head from escaping the stand. The second was a colleague who was in charge of the first Fire Appliance to reach the ground who found casualties trapped in an alleyway at the back of the stand with the exits to the street locked.
Apparently there was old paper shite from the 1960s under that stand. These days the club would be closed down under the weight of litigation for their negligence. Back then it was all 'what? Me?'.
R.I.P.
There was an interesting piece published in the Guardian in 2015, with regard to the fire.
The Story of the Bradford Fire: ‘could any man really be as unlucky as Stafford Heginbotham?’
The blaze that killed 56 football fans at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground in 1985 was just one of at least nine fires at businesses owned by or associated with the club’s then chairman, according to extraordinary evidence published for the first time.The revelations are contained in a book written by Martin Fletcher.
The book, serialised by the Guardian today and tomorrow, 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. Fletcher does not make any direct allegations but he does believe Heginbotham’s history with fires, resulting in payouts of around £27m in today’s terms, warranted further investigation. “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?” he asks.
The disaster at Valley Parade came at a time, according to Fletcher’s evidence, when the businessman was in desperate financial trouble, unable to pay his workforce beyond that month. Heginbotham had learned two days before the fire it would cost £2m to bring the ground up to safety standards required by Bradford’s promotion from the old Third Division that season. Yet this has never been reported and did not feature in the Popplewell Inquiry, chaired by the then high court judge Oliver Popplewell, which held its investigation only three weeks after the fire.
The inquiry heard only five days of testimony and concluded the fire was probably started by a match, a cigarette or pipe tobacco slipping through gaps in the floorboards on to litter that had built up over the previous 20 years. Fletcher does not accept that version and quotes a report by the Fire Research Station, a government-funded body, that “features of the Bradford fire required a detail of understanding greater than that presented to the formal inquiry”.
Fletcher’s evidence was collected through months of painstaking research into Heginbotham’s business history and by trawling 20 years of local newspaper reports into fires in the Bradford area.
The pattern began with a fire at a three-storey Bradford factory in May 1967 and continued on Good Friday 1968 with another fire at the premises of Genefoam, of which Heginbotham was the managing director. A firm Heginbotham had founded suffered a serious fire in 1970 before the Castle Mills building, owned by Heginbotham, had a fire in 1971. Further blazes followed at the Douglas Mills building, also owned by Heginbotham, in August and November 1977. In December that year there was a fire at the premises of Coronet Marketing, a subsidiary of Heginbotham’s Tebro Toys. A further fire at the Douglas Mills building occurred in June 1981.
The Story of the Bradford Fire: ‘could any man really be as unlucky as Stafford Heginbotham?’
The blaze that killed 56 football fans at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground in 1985 was just one of at least nine fires at businesses owned by or associated with the club’s then chairman, according to extraordinary evidence published for the first time.The revelations are contained in a book written by Martin Fletcher.
The book, serialised by the Guardian today and tomorrow, 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. Fletcher does not make any direct allegations but he does believe Heginbotham’s history with fires, resulting in payouts of around £27m in today’s terms, warranted further investigation. “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?” he asks.
The disaster at Valley Parade came at a time, according to Fletcher’s evidence, when the businessman was in desperate financial trouble, unable to pay his workforce beyond that month. Heginbotham had learned two days before the fire it would cost £2m to bring the ground up to safety standards required by Bradford’s promotion from the old Third Division that season. Yet this has never been reported and did not feature in the Popplewell Inquiry, chaired by the then high court judge Oliver Popplewell, which held its investigation only three weeks after the fire.
The inquiry heard only five days of testimony and concluded the fire was probably started by a match, a cigarette or pipe tobacco slipping through gaps in the floorboards on to litter that had built up over the previous 20 years. Fletcher does not accept that version and quotes a report by the Fire Research Station, a government-funded body, that “features of the Bradford fire required a detail of understanding greater than that presented to the formal inquiry”.
Fletcher’s evidence was collected through months of painstaking research into Heginbotham’s business history and by trawling 20 years of local newspaper reports into fires in the Bradford area.
The pattern began with a fire at a three-storey Bradford factory in May 1967 and continued on Good Friday 1968 with another fire at the premises of Genefoam, of which Heginbotham was the managing director. A firm Heginbotham had founded suffered a serious fire in 1970 before the Castle Mills building, owned by Heginbotham, had a fire in 1971. Further blazes followed at the Douglas Mills building, also owned by Heginbotham, in August and November 1977. In December that year there was a fire at the premises of Coronet Marketing, a subsidiary of Heginbotham’s Tebro Toys. A further fire at the Douglas Mills building occurred in June 1981.
The Andy Naylor Fan Club
Well-known member
I mentioned earlier in this thread that I recall the events of that day but have never really gone into great detail of what went on. My god, when I read that last sentence of your quote it was though a sudden wave of sadness came over me. What a desparately sad situation those people must have found themselves in, having got away from the fire in the stand but to find their only means of escape blocked must have been a truely awful moment. I merely thought that anyone that perished that day, done so in the stand itself. So cruel. RIP the 56.
- Jan 3, 2012
- 16,591
I still remember watching it horror-struck on the telly. Not ashamed to say it brought tears to my eyes at the time, let alone since. Just awful.
- Apr 5, 2014
- 23,578
Not long before Heysel I seem to remember. Young Brummie was killed at their match with Leeds United that day.
We played Sheffield United that day at The Goldstone and there were a few pitch skirmishes. Pretty low time for English football that period.
We played Sheffield United that day at The Goldstone and there were a few pitch skirmishes. Pretty low time for English football that period.
I can remember a flare being fired towards the West stand from the Sheffield fans.
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