11-05-2025
Unforgotten: The Bradford City Fire, review: a worthy memorial made with care and respect
The title of Unforgotten: The Bradford City Fire (BBC Two) is carefully chosen. The 1985 tragedy that claimed 56 lives will, of course, never be forgotten by the victims' families or those who witnessed it. For Bradfordians like myself who are old enough to remember that day in May, the memory lingers. If you're a football fan, perhaps you recall seeing the horror unfold live on television. But, by and large, it has faded from public consciousness, overshadowed by other footballing disasters.
It was the last day of a triumphant season, the team already crowned Third Division champions. TV footage of the match, shown here, catches a hint of smoke in the corner of the frame. From there, it takes under four minutes for the stand to become an inferno. Almost all of those who died had attempted to escape through the back of the stand, but found turnstiles and gates closed.
Forty years on, this documentary revisits the tragedy through the recollections of people who were there. They include the team captain, Peter Jackson; Mick Doyle, the groundsman, who realised upon seeing the flames that his brother was in the stand; and Hazel Greenwood, who lost her husband and two sons. Her testimony is heartbreaking. Six boys from Hazel's street went to the game that afternoon, 'and they all came home, but my boys'. We hear a replay of sports reporter Mike Delahunty's anguished radio commentary, begging fleeing fans to evacuate and 'watch for the kiddies'. Eleven of the victims were children.
It is an excellent documentary, made with care and respect, and a worthy memorial. It sets the scene by describing Bradford's decline from centre of the wool trade to a city of poverty and hardship. 'A lot of once-magnificent thoroughfares turning to s--t, basically', said Jim Greenhalf, a venerable Telegraph & Argus journalist who deftly contextualised what Bradford City's soaring fortunes that season meant to local people.
'Once you start having expectations, your days change. Once you start looking forward to something, as opposed to gritting your teeth and hoping for the best, you wake up with a different feeling. Right across Bradford, people waking up and not feeling c--p for once.'
Similarly, Asadour Guzelian, a local photographer, described the Valley Parade ground as a 's--theap' back then, and yet: 'On its day, it generated an atmosphere unequalled anywhere.' You could substitute any number of British towns and cities for Bradford here. Delahunty called it 'lower division heaven'.
There are plenty of tough men in the documentary, reduced to tears by what they saw. In addition to the archive footage, we have Guzelian's haunting photographs, shot in black and white after he reasoned that the lab required to process colour film wouldn't be open on a Saturday afternoon. A discarded cigarette or match is thought to have caused the fire, falling between the wooden floorboards and setting light to rubbish that had accumulated beneath.
The Popplewell Inquiry concluded that it was an accident; a later theory that it was arson, linked to chairman Stafford Heginbotham's financial difficulties, is dealt with briskly here and dismissed as unfounded.
Perhaps this is why the Bradford fire has faded from memory. There was no need to campaign for justice or accountability. All that's left is grief, not grievance.
