24 years today
Posted: Mon May 11, 2009 9:16 pmI forgot all about this until ive just read it an its shameless of me , but i think it gets overshadowed by Hillsborough well on my part anyway . I remember watching it on the telly horrific scenes,
The Bradford fire disaster. RIP OUR FELLOW FOOTBALL FANS
From The TimesMay 12, 2003
Day that will live with me forever
By Gabby Logan
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO YESTERDAY, 56 people lost their lives in the worst fire disaster at a football stadium this country has known. The Bradford fire started at 3.40pm on the last Saturday of the season.
Before the match, the third division trophy had been paraded around Valley Parade by the triumphant Bradford City players. The game against Lincoln City was a formality we had to go through before we could get on with the real job of celebrating. Dad was coming to the end of his playing career and had also been assistant manager that season. This was the start of a new era, for him and the club.
In the days before the match, Dad had been desperately trying to get tickets for members of our extended family. I was only 12 and there were so many who wanted to come that my sister, brother and I were bumped out of our seats in the directors’ box and relocated within the same stand. The fire started no more than four rows in front of where we regularly sat.
At about 3.38pm my Mum signalled to us that we should go to the players’ lounge early for half-time refreshments, because it would be busier than usual as the match was a sell-out at around 11,000. This was actually normal practice for Mum. We always joked that she thought matches were 20 minutes each way and she invariably arrived late and left early. Her shoddy timekeeping may well have saved our lives.
We had been in the bar for no more than a minute when a woman told us all quite calmly that a fire had started. What happened next will live with me for ever. My nine-year-old brother had gone missing — he often went down to my Dad’s office at half-time to raid his chocolate supplies — and Mum made sure my sister and I stayed with her. Together we made our way out on to the street.
The smoke had started to fill the valley that gave the ground its name. It was 3.44pm and visibility was so poor you could see only a metre in front of you. In front of me, an old man with a flat cap and a walking stick was having trouble breathing. He was being urged to keep moving, but he couldn’t. There was no screaming, it was a quiet that comes from darkness. The only sounds were feet moving at speed.
Suddenly, out of the blackness, my brother appeared. One of the players had gone into the offices to clear people out and had found him. Later that day the player would learn that his girlfriend was dead.
We made our way to Manningham Lane. A pub at the top of the street had opened its doors and soon it was filled with Bradford supporters, some blackened by smoke, most already realising that they were lucky to be alive. We looked back at the Sunwin Stand. It was an inferno. Real or imagined, we felt the heat.
Inside the pub, Grandstand was on the television, although normal coverage had been interrupted to take live pictures from Valley Parade, as Match of the Day had sent a few cameras to cover the presentation of the trophy. The fire took hold so quickly. The cause: a cigarette discarded inside a plastic cup in the wooden stand that had been built on top of a rubbish tip. We were watching a disaster unfold before our eyes, just 50 metres outside the door. The sirens were relentless, fire crews and ambulances were whizzing by and flames were dominating the skyline. The TV pictures showed fans spilling on to the pitch; what they couldn’t have seen were the fans who had tried to leave the burning stand by a different exit. The majority of the 56 people who died had been trapped by the locked doors behind the turnstiles.
Dad was trying to find us. On his journey, he had walked into a ground-level bar that still had people in it, oblivious to what was going on. He screamed at them to get out and had to usher them through the door before he went on searching. There was nobody left in that part of the ground, so he headed back to the door he had come through, but it was now too dangerous. He could see smoke and flames, so he threw a chair at a window about 20 feet above street level and jumped out.
When he eventually found us, he saw that he had a gash through his waterproof trousers from the glass in the window and blood had matted on them where he had cut his thigh. That was the only physical injury to any member of our family.
I know that Dad’s mental scars run deeper. My parents didn’t feel it was appropriate that any of us be privy to their conversations about what Dad had seen. On his journey around the ground, he had been in those areas where fans had tried in vain to make turnstiles turn the wrong way, to make bolted doors open. He had heard screams of agony and had seen what remained of people who had gone to a football match with their sons and daughters, people who were loyal fans of his team. I could only imagine the nightmares he was having. In the following month there didn’t seem to be a day without a funeral or a memorial service for him to go to. His eyes were permanently bloodshot.
Just a few weeks after Bradford came the Heysel Stadium disaster and, a few years after that, there was Hillsborough, which claimed even more lives. The incredible changes to stadiums and the way we watch football in the past ten years are directly related to those tragedies. We must never forget those fans who set off intending to watch a game of football, to cheer their team on, and never came home.
The Bradford fire disaster. RIP OUR FELLOW FOOTBALL FANS
From The TimesMay 12, 2003
Day that will live with me forever
By Gabby Logan
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO YESTERDAY, 56 people lost their lives in the worst fire disaster at a football stadium this country has known. The Bradford fire started at 3.40pm on the last Saturday of the season.
Before the match, the third division trophy had been paraded around Valley Parade by the triumphant Bradford City players. The game against Lincoln City was a formality we had to go through before we could get on with the real job of celebrating. Dad was coming to the end of his playing career and had also been assistant manager that season. This was the start of a new era, for him and the club.
In the days before the match, Dad had been desperately trying to get tickets for members of our extended family. I was only 12 and there were so many who wanted to come that my sister, brother and I were bumped out of our seats in the directors’ box and relocated within the same stand. The fire started no more than four rows in front of where we regularly sat.
At about 3.38pm my Mum signalled to us that we should go to the players’ lounge early for half-time refreshments, because it would be busier than usual as the match was a sell-out at around 11,000. This was actually normal practice for Mum. We always joked that she thought matches were 20 minutes each way and she invariably arrived late and left early. Her shoddy timekeeping may well have saved our lives.
We had been in the bar for no more than a minute when a woman told us all quite calmly that a fire had started. What happened next will live with me for ever. My nine-year-old brother had gone missing — he often went down to my Dad’s office at half-time to raid his chocolate supplies — and Mum made sure my sister and I stayed with her. Together we made our way out on to the street.
The smoke had started to fill the valley that gave the ground its name. It was 3.44pm and visibility was so poor you could see only a metre in front of you. In front of me, an old man with a flat cap and a walking stick was having trouble breathing. He was being urged to keep moving, but he couldn’t. There was no screaming, it was a quiet that comes from darkness. The only sounds were feet moving at speed.
Suddenly, out of the blackness, my brother appeared. One of the players had gone into the offices to clear people out and had found him. Later that day the player would learn that his girlfriend was dead.
We made our way to Manningham Lane. A pub at the top of the street had opened its doors and soon it was filled with Bradford supporters, some blackened by smoke, most already realising that they were lucky to be alive. We looked back at the Sunwin Stand. It was an inferno. Real or imagined, we felt the heat.
Inside the pub, Grandstand was on the television, although normal coverage had been interrupted to take live pictures from Valley Parade, as Match of the Day had sent a few cameras to cover the presentation of the trophy. The fire took hold so quickly. The cause: a cigarette discarded inside a plastic cup in the wooden stand that had been built on top of a rubbish tip. We were watching a disaster unfold before our eyes, just 50 metres outside the door. The sirens were relentless, fire crews and ambulances were whizzing by and flames were dominating the skyline. The TV pictures showed fans spilling on to the pitch; what they couldn’t have seen were the fans who had tried to leave the burning stand by a different exit. The majority of the 56 people who died had been trapped by the locked doors behind the turnstiles.
Dad was trying to find us. On his journey, he had walked into a ground-level bar that still had people in it, oblivious to what was going on. He screamed at them to get out and had to usher them through the door before he went on searching. There was nobody left in that part of the ground, so he headed back to the door he had come through, but it was now too dangerous. He could see smoke and flames, so he threw a chair at a window about 20 feet above street level and jumped out.
When he eventually found us, he saw that he had a gash through his waterproof trousers from the glass in the window and blood had matted on them where he had cut his thigh. That was the only physical injury to any member of our family.
I know that Dad’s mental scars run deeper. My parents didn’t feel it was appropriate that any of us be privy to their conversations about what Dad had seen. On his journey around the ground, he had been in those areas where fans had tried in vain to make turnstiles turn the wrong way, to make bolted doors open. He had heard screams of agony and had seen what remained of people who had gone to a football match with their sons and daughters, people who were loyal fans of his team. I could only imagine the nightmares he was having. In the following month there didn’t seem to be a day without a funeral or a memorial service for him to go to. His eyes were permanently bloodshot.
Just a few weeks after Bradford came the Heysel Stadium disaster and, a few years after that, there was Hillsborough, which claimed even more lives. The incredible changes to stadiums and the way we watch football in the past ten years are directly related to those tragedies. We must never forget those fans who set off intending to watch a game of football, to cheer their team on, and never came home.
R.I.P