The Bradford City fire... 25 years ago today

THE cruel irony was lost on no-one, least of all Bradford City chairman Stafford Heginbotham.

"Just 90 more minutes, " said a clearly shell-shocked Bantams chief in the aftermath of the Valley Parade fire that claimed 56 lives, "and the stand would have done its stint."

Two days after City's final game of the season against Lincoln City, a structure designed by renowned architect Archibald Leitch would be dismantled and Bradford's only remaining Football League ground brought into line with modern safety standards – namely the Safety of Sports Grounds Act (1975).

City, along with every club in the Third and Fourth Divisions, had been exempt from the legislation that had been introduced in the wake of the 1971 Ibrox disaster that saw 66 people lose their lives.

But, after clinching promotion to the second tier five days earlier with a 2-0 win at Bolton Wanderers, Bradford would suddenly need a safety certificate from the local authority to kick-off the following season.

And it was plain to anyone who had watched a Bantams game from the club's only seating area during the past 10 years that the wooden structure would fall woefully short of reaching minimum standards.

The City board had started to cost the project during the Spring, eventually settling on a 400,000 scheme that would involve re-roofing, replacing the wooden seats and concreting the entire area.

Funding had been secured, largely via grants, and so keen were the board to get on with the work that anyone arriving at the ground ahead of City's coronation as champions against Lincoln could see that the steel girders had already been delivered, ready for the workmen to arrive on the Monday morning and start the long-overdue upgrade.

As Heginbotham, who in a previous stint as Bantams chairman in the Sixties had helped to lay some concrete flooring in the middle section of the doomed structure, lamented in the aftermath of the then-worst disaster to hit English football – just one more game and the 77-year-old stand had done its service.

Instead, it became a death trap.

The subsequent inquiry into the disaster led by Mr Justice Popplewell established, as clearly as it could, that the fire had been started by either a discarded cigarette or match that had fallen between one of the many gaps in the wooden floorboard.

Indeed, the gaps, as one witness would later testify, were so wide in places that a scarf had been lost earlier in the season.

Then, once under the floor, the discarded cigarette/match ignited rubbish and debris that had been allowed to accumulate over the years. (After the fire, an unburnt copy of a newspaper from 1968 was found under the stand along with a pre-decimalisation peanut wrapper).

Smoke from the by now burning rubbish was the first inkling the 11,076 crowd had of the impending disaster, though initially very few realised the significance.

Play continued as those in the immediate vicinity started to clear, reluctantly in some cases, the area.

Once the smoke had turned into fire, however, the blaze was unforgiving as the deadly combination of highly-flammable materials and a wind blowing from the end of the main stand where the initial fire had started ensured the whole structure was quickly engulfed. The first fire engine arrived from the Nelson Street station in the city centre within four minutes but even that was too late to save those who had made their way to the original point of entry at the back of the stand.

With the exit gates locked and the turnstiles only able to be operated from outside the ground on South Parade, there was simply no escape amid the searing heat.

Of the 56 who ultimately died, 19 bodies were found by one turnstile and 22 next to another. Three more were found in the toilet.

Amid the horror that also saw 265 fans injured, harrowing personal stories emerged in the aftermath.

There was the family of five who had travelled to the game together from Nottingham only for just one to return.

There was the former girlfriend of City striker Don Goodman who perished, along with the elderly couple who burned to death still sitting in their seats.

One man, engulfed in flames, made it on to the pitch but later died of his injuries.

Two Lincoln supporters also died, Bill Stacey and Jim West being remembered at Sincil Bank where one stand is named after the two men.

Amid the chaos, tales of heroism also emerged with Bradford striker John Hawley, despite sporting just his thin nylon football shirt, yanking a man over the perimeter wall and on to the pitch.

Two civilians and four policemen were later awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for putting their own lives at risk to help fellow supporters.

Twenty-five years on, the memories of those caught up in the fire remain as vivid as ever.

It is why those who follow City never resort to the hackneyed hyperbole that can so often be used when describing modern day football.

Missing an open goal at Valley Parade is not a 'disaster', nor is relegation a 'tragedy'.

In Bradford, they know the true meaning of these words.