Unforgotten: The Bradford City Fire — a vital reminder of a football tragedy

Times

12-05-2025

If you asked people to name a British football catastrophe, most would probably cite the national scandal that was the Hillsborough disaster. The Bradford City fire tragedy happened four years earlier in 1985, leaving 56 people dead, but it is fading more from public memory.
The feature-length Unforgotten: The Bradford City Fire (BBC2) was an impressive, forensic and enormously moving rejoinder to this, not only reminding us of the sheer horror of that day, May 11, when the main stand became a furnace, completely swallowed in flames in under four minutes, but also honouring the victims and the strength of the local community.
It interviewed emergency responders and fans who survived the disaster, some of whom are clearly still traumatised 40 years on. It replayed