Interesting (and shocking) read: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/15/bradford-fire-stafford-heginbotham-martin-fletcher
Wow, that is shocking. It's something that never really gets spoken about, as opposed to Hillsborough, for example. We had just put it down to a tragic consequence of the contempt that football clubs had for their supporters, which seems valid in light of the refusal to take notice of the fire warnings. For the younger members of the BBS, prior to the Premier League, where money disappears out of the game to players and agents and is actually pumped in by stupid, rich owners, the money in those days used to line the pockets of board members, with very little notice given to the comfort and safety of spectators. In fact, the poor state of the stadium was one of the contributing factors at Hillsborough too. But what this chaps says is quite shocking and surely deserves being looked in to. With the chairman long dead though, it's going to be difficult to get to the bottom of it, if there is any truth in it, unless there were any co-conspirators who are suddenly going to come clean.
The ones who went on to the pitch survived. The ones who relying on instinct, we'll get out the way we came in, kind of thing, didn't. They went back down under the stand. And of course all the turnstiles were closed, and all the exit gates still locked, they perished The speed and ferocity of the fire was too much. From the very first sign of smoke at one end, to the hole stand being an inferno, was 4 minutes. We did a Health and Safety course last year on fires, and the one at Bradford maybe cos it was local... The uncut version of the ITV match with John Helm commentating is still very harrowing to watch ....
I watched the say documentary last year in Nottingham ( you wasn't on the Iosh or Nebosh coarse were you ?
Here's a very interesting and nicely understated book about it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Minute...TF8&qid=1429122221&sr=1-1&keywords=paul+firth Strongly recommended.
Wow I wasn't aware of that, even though the chairman is now dead, I would still want a thorough investigation if its true. The victims families need closure especially as it could be murder / manslaughter and not an accident as is always thought
I always thought there was more of an issue to the Bradford fire. It is amazing how many old wooden stands in the 50s and 60s burned down during the close season under the assumption that intruders had caused the fires. This was the last game of the season and I always thought it strange that the police officers who were alerted to the first signs of the fire did so little to extinguish it. It is not a comfortable thought, but there seems until this report to be no evidence to support the idea that it might have been more than an accident. I have always thought it unlikely it was deliberate, especially as the development of the fire was televised from the outset, but I have often wondered why earlier action was not taken to put it out when it would have been easily manageable to do so - I mean: small fire; wooden stand; crowds of people in it - why no immediate action, either to extinguish, or evacuate? Strange.
According to the judge who led the enquiry the burnt stand, due to its run down state, had no insurance value - there was no point in someone deliberately setting it alight. However Judge Poplewell said there should be checks on the many insurance claims made by chairman Heginbotham in the years before the Bradford fire. With the Hillsborough Disaster the victim's families haven't let things go whereas in Bradford there hasn't been any one challenging the official reports suggesting most people accept the reports.
