As a football club, Bradford City has had their high moments in its distinguished football history. Who will forget David Wetherall’s spectacular header which beat Liverpool on the final day of the 1999/00 Premiership season. Unbridled joy at Valley Parade followed when the supporters realised that they had beaten the drop, and Wimbledon went down instead. However, they have a horror low moment, which today still ranks alongside sport’s biggest tragedies, twenty-five years on.
On Saturday May 11th 1985, the Bantams day started full of celebration. The club paraded the Third Division title just before their final match of the season, against Lincoln City. With the score at 0-0, five minutes before half-time, the main stand at Valley Parade was ignited by a raging fire, that swept through the stand in next to no time. From a small controllable blaze, to something of the greatest magnitude, as it took little under four minutes for the entire stand to be completely ablaze. Supporters rushed onto the pitch in panic and fear, completely shocked to the core of the destruction that had just taken place. Tragically, the gates at the back of the stand had been locked, to prevent people without tickets sneaking into the game. Even more so, the stand that caught ablaze in dramatic fashion was due for demolition in the summer of 1985, for a more updated version. 56 people, hoping to see a day of celebration and ecstasy lost their lives in the Valley Parade inferno, and over 270 were injured, some with severe burns that see the scars still hurt today.
The club had to go on and play their Second Division games for the following season at Leeds Elland Road and in Huddersfield, before setting up camp at Odsal Stadium, now home to the Super League side, the Bradford Bulls. Following a staggering amount of donations, Valley Parade reopened in December 1986, but those 56 will never be forgotten. The cause of the fire is largely unknown, though many believe that it was a dropped cigarette or match that ignited rubbish underneath the main stand, which had been clustered together over a significant number of years. The heat of the blaze could be felt across the ground, as the venomous smoke lit the sky. Yorkshire TV, who was filming the game, chose never to release the footage, as a tribute to those who lost their lives. Having seen pictures and the odd video on YouTube of the horror, I cannot imagine the nightmare that fans were experiencing and for the veteran commentator, John Helm, who was commentating on the game for ITV Football League programme.
Today, Bradford stood silent to remember the fifty-six who perished at the city’s Centaury Square. Some 2,000 mourners attended the outside memorial, which included a singing of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ before a one-minute silence. With the Heysel tragedy just a mere three weeks later, the Bradford fire is one of those forgotten tragedies in sport, but it is one of the worst for sure. Today, we must remember those fifty-six and the scores injured, who went to see a carnival, only to be caught in a horror nightmare.
To the Bradford 1985 fifty-six, R.I.P.
