Bradford Disaster

Nobody should ever go to a football match and never return home, very sad indeed.

RIP to the 56.

 

I'll never forget those horrific scenes. All seemed OK and within seconds hundreds of fans were caught up in that inferno.

Always remembered. R.I.P.

 

RIP to the 56.

 

I still remember hearing the news when this happened and seeing the horrible scenes. Even now its hard to watch the footage.

 

Unbelievable Mario. 56 fans burned to death and countless others with serious burns and injuries....and they only went along to a game of football.

1985 was a really horrible year. After Bradford there was the Heysell and in October I lost my father. Not a year I care to remember with any fondness.

 

RIP the 56. Never forgotten.

 

We Will Remember Them

#RIPThe56

 

Absolute disgrace that there is to be no minutes silence held around the grounds this afternoon.

The FA and Premier League once again showing their lack of class.

 

RIP the 56

Such a shame that it never gets as much recognition as the other disasters of the time.

 

Their was a minutes silence before the Peterborough game yesterday.

 

Was there? I didn't watch it. But that's good to know. Perhaps there will be a u-turn this afternoon then, and a minutes silence before the Premier League games?

 

I would be disgusted if there wasn't a minutes silence before today's football games, this disaster often gets forgotten about in regards to other football disasters of the era.

Everyone who goes to a football match should return home to their families.

Thankfully though, sport has learned from these and forced improvement in facilities, for all our dislike of standing, flatpack concrete grounds etc, they are there for a reason.

RIP to the 56

 

Barnsley were away to Oxford United that day. I remember it being windy on the Cookoo Lane terrace (away end). Oxford we're celebrating promotion to the 1st Division. At least one of the Barnsley supporters coaches was late and (correct me if I am wrong) the Reds were 3 - 0 down when some supporters arrived. The crook Robert Maxwell waddled on to the pitch at the end.

In the days before instant communication I only heard of the disaster when I got home in Abingdon. Very sad day and an awful indictment of the way supporters were treated in that era. Something that did not change until an even worse disaster happened a few years later.

 

The FA have probably received thousands of tweets today regarding a minutes silence, so I'd be surprised if they don't do it now.

 

I tell the same story every year, but as long as people remember ..... I'll continue to share.

I am Bradford born and bred. As a 19 year old, I was offered the chance to go to City v Lincoln with my Dad and younger sister and cousin .... was supposed to be a celebratory day, and ordinarily I may have joined them. Barnsley were away at Oxford, who were runaway champs that year. Not an away match I would have normally chosen, we couldn't go up nor down, I couldn't drive ... so there was no real reason to go. But an older guy I worked with, Frank, was the Father-in-Law of Gary Briggs, outstanding Oxford defender who was talked about as potential England class (though our Gordon Owen had made him look ordinary earlier in the season at Oakwell). Frank was going to drive down, to take in the Oxford celebrations and perhaps get into the after match piss-up. He asked if I wanted to join him and his son as guests of Gary. We went to Gary's house for lunch, and saw him on his way ......... we went to the Manor ground later and sat about 3 rows behind Robert Maxwell, who was feted as some kind of footballing God in the way Abramovich is in the present day I guess. The match was a blur, Oxford went 4-up after about 20 minutes, and although we prevented further carnage it was not a game I remember too fondly. After the game, we met the Oxford players, some of whom were already tanked up and we had a kick-around in the Oxford goal (I could not believe the slope on that pitch - you could barely see the bottom corner flag from the top one. We went into the players lounge then - all the Barnsley lads were suited and booted, and I had a chat with Calvin Plummer and remember asking him if I could have his shirt, but it had already been packed away.

Whilst chatting with Calvin, and watching the Oxford players getting quickly quite inebriated (Jim Smith was well out of it), I saw an old TV in the corner of the bar.

League Division 3 ........... "Bradford City v.(a) Lincoln City". I ordered a pint, and asked the barman if he knew why City had been abandoned. Your first thought in the mid 80's was 'crowd trouble?'. "Oh, there was a little fire that got out of hand - players were taken off for safety" was his polite answer. When the results were over, it didn't go back to the 'normal' Grandstand format of reports, interviews, table etc .... it went to this scene of what I assumed was some international disaster that was unfolding; it was all a bit surreal. What I was seeing on this screen, I didn't for one second relate it to what the barman had told me. It didn't take long to fathom it though. Here I was, an impressionable late teenager, sat in the players bar in Oxford with all "my heroes", drinking beer with all the Oxford superstars of the day, whilst at the same time I was watching my hometown and what had now become what we would these days term a "breaking news" story. The barman had worked out my concern by now and he turned the TV over and told me (whilst laughing) "you really have nothing to worry about - enjoy your evening". I know for a fact he wasn't being nasty, he was telling me how he saw it.

The next thing I always think about, with hindsight, is how we take mobiles and the internet for granted now. I suddenly felt desperate about how my Dad, Julie and Lisa were. With a 10p piece, I called home - no answer. Should I be worried or should I take the barman at his word .

Gary and a guy called Billy Hamilton came over to ask if we wanted to go out on the razz with the Oxford team. We could kip at Garys and make our way back North Sunday. Frank didn't want to impose, but we soon talked him round, so off we went round Bicester, and I remember not really feeling up for it, but I do remember a darts competition in a Bicester pub with Gary, Billy Hamilton (hammered !) and John Aldridge and his Dad. And there's the other thing ........ we did a fair few pubs that night and there were no widescreen TVs, Plasma's, rolling News etc. During the darts, I broke off to try home again. My Dad answered, and was very shaken. They were home safe. He described the panic, and the worst part for him (they were stood in what is now the way end) was that Lisa had panicked knowing her Dad was in the main stand. She had run on the pitch, and when my Dad ran after her, whilst trying to make sure Julie was safe, he had burnt his hand on one of the barbaric "safety" barriers. Not serious enough to require treatment. Anyways, they all got out safe, but he was very shaken. I remember him telling me he feared there were many dead, and that I should listen out for the news.

Back in the pub, Billy Hamilton was somewhere between unconscious and comatose, Gary and the rest were suitably imbibed, and I was a mixture of tipsy, numb, and fearful. Apart from my Dad and co, nearly all my other mates would have been at Valley Parade.

We got back to Garys posh house in Bicester; I was given a mattress and sleeping bag. Gary was a big tough central defender, and obviously on a high because of his teams achievement. Before he made his way to bed though, he saw my concern and asked if I was OK. Then he put their posh TV on - I knew it was posh, cos it had teletext. Again, no 24 hour news, which these days we take for granted. Page 101 "Many lives lost in stadium disaster". That was my night over.

Now Frank, great bloke though he was, was a bit of a tight-ass -) ) and when we drove home next morning, instead of taking me "home", he dropped me off at the end of the M606, so he could get back to Cleckheaton without accumulating an extra 8 miles. There was a sunday bus service, and I wasn't going to flag down a taxi, so I set off walking home, a good 5 mile or so at a guess. Most of the first part of the walk afforded a view over the City - I swear if you had no idea of the previous days events you would have just KNOWN something wasn't right in Bradford.

I was pleased to see my Dad and Julie, then I remember the Sunday evening in my local, a normally boisterous pub (The Fiddlers Three) ...... it was just an amazingley quiet and sullen atmosphere, with the occassional "so and so is missing" and "whoisits son hasn't got home yet". There was no amateur dramatics, or over-reaction, just this sad realisation that a number of people never returned from a football match.

And 29 years on, that sums up todays forum and Facebook posts. "56 people went to a football match and never returned".

That's just my sad story ........ there are plenty of people in Bradford and Lincoln with far worse versions of events and I cannot begin to imagine how they feel on this day. My thoughts are with them.

As for my Dad ..... he'd followed City quite avidly for a few years with my Sister and his Brother and a few others. They would go home and away, and part of me feels I should have been part of that, but for me, Barnsley intervened. He stopped going. It put him off football for a few years ........ then one day one of his workmates got him tickets to an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Forest.

RIP the 56.

 

^

That

 

Rightly or wrongly .....

Liverpool Football Club ensures nobody forgets their personal disaster.

I hope they show some class today and remember the smaller clubs who suffered a similar fate 29 years ago.

 

Fiddlers Three. Just down the road from us.

Great (sad) story mate.