THE FORMER CHAIRMAN of English football club Bradford City, where 56 people died in a 1985 stadium fire, can be linked to eight other blazes, a new book claims.
Stafford Heginbotham, who died in 1995, was chairman of Bradford on the day the timber main stand at their Valley Parade ground burned down during a third-tier match against Lincoln City, claiming 56 lives.
Martin Fletcher, who fled the fire, which killed his brother, father, uncle and grandfather, alleges in a book that other buildings owned by or associated with Heginbotham had burnt down prior to the disaster.
“Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?” Fletcher asks in the book, 56 – The Story of the Bradford Fire, which was serialised by The Guardian on Wednesday.
Fletcher, 12 at the time of the disaster, has spent 15 years investigating Heginbotham and alleges that eight other buildings linked to him caught fire in the 18 years prior to the Valley Parade tragedy.
The author says the fires resulted in substantial insurance claims running into millions of pounds, but he does not making any direct allegations against Heginbotham.
An inquiry into the disaster held three weeks afterwards found that the fire had probably been caused by a match, a cigarette or pipe tobacco falling onto rubbish that had built up beneath the stand.
News of the book’s claims broke on the 26th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death during an FA Cup semi-final match against Nottingham Forest in Sheffield in 1989.
Following a long campaign by victims’ families, verdicts of accidental death were quashed in 2012 after evidence of a police cover-up was revealed and new inquests into the deaths are ongoing.
Supporters and Liverpool figures past and present observed a memorial service at the club’s Anfield stadium on Wednesday afternoon.
I’d never seen that video clip before, Jesus the scenes at the end were harrowing.
I was watching something on ITV World of Sport that day and they switched over live to Valley Parade when the fire started. It was hectic stuff to watch. Terrible tragedy from a totally different era.
Jesus that poor guy just at the end engulfed in flames .. very upsetting..
I remember watching it at the time, was so distressing. Still upsetting to look at all these years later.
It was the weekend of my First Communion, I think Sunday morning TV was all about this disaster. That video was pretty disturbing.
Serial Arsonist/murderer? Odd that his insurers and accountants didn’t make note of the number of his business ventures that suddenly burst into flames?
Terrible to hear. Wonder how many other such “accidents” are actually murders?
Was shown the video at a fire awareness course to show how quick fire can spread. Scary the time it took to envelope the stand just shows how quick it spreads be warned!
Thankfully no structure like that stand would have a wooden roof these days.
The Bradford fire is the forgotten tragedy of British football. Very sad.
Dermot,
I can assure you that it is not forgotten in West Yorkshire, doubt if it is in Lincoln eithe.
Bloody disgrace of true but hard to believe this story didn’t raise its head years ago. Even insurance companies check this sort of thing out prior to making a pay out. No doubt the story will help sell some books though
If my memory serve m or rectory the inquest found that some of the timber used was old railway sleepers which used to b soaked in tar. This Los accelerated the pro o the blaze, also there was rubbish including newspapers etc under the stands which had been lying there for years.
After this it was forbidden to use old sleepers and areas below stands etc had to be cleaned monthly..
Horrific. I remember the day well. Hard to watch some of those scenes in the video.
Please put a warning of graphic content on this video. The scenes are very upsetting. I wasn’t expecting it.