09-05-2025
Witnesses to Bradford City stadium fire recall horror 40 years on
On 11 May 1985 56 people were fatally injured in a devastating fire at Bradford City's Valley Parade stadium. More than 250 others were injured.
Forty years on, people who were there share their memories of that fateful day.
'It went from boring to horror in seconds'
Commentator Tony Delahunty was covering what should have been a celebratory occasion at Valley Parade for Pennine Radio.
Bradford City had already clinched the Third Division title and had paraded their trophy around the pitch before what was effectively a meaningless fixture against Lincoln.
The crowd of 11,000 was almost double the average attendance for that season and there was a carnival atmosphere inside the ground as the home fans anticipated their return to the second tier of English football.
More than 2,000 of those supporters were in the dilapidated main stand, which was made of wood and had already been condemned. It was due to be pulled down days later, to be replaced with a steel stand.
At 0-0, and with a distinctly end-of-season feel, the match itself seemed destined to be one to forget.
"There was nothing special about the game, it was after the Lord Mayor's show," Delahunty says.
"The first half was boring. There was nothing very much at stake. But it went from boring to horror in seconds."
At 3.44 pm, five minutes before half-time, John Helm, who was commentating on the game for a special Yorkshire Television programme to be broadcast later that day, noticed something was wrong.
An orange flicker could be seen three rows from the back of block G in the main stand - opposite Helm's commentary position.
Remembering that moment, Helm says: "With the naked eye I just saw a little glow."
But then the flames took hold.
As the ball went out of play, Helm remarked during commentary: "We've actually got a fire in the stand on the far side of the ground - and that looks very nasty indeed."
The commentator said recalling it sent "shudders" up his spine. "Initially it was just a tiny little fire, and those were my words," he said.
Neil Redfearn, who was playing for Lincoln that day, was on the same side of the pitch as the main stand when the ball was kicked out of touch.
"As I turned and the ball went into the stand, I could see part of the fire starting to take shape," he said. "It was almost like an out-of-body experience, it happened that quick.
"People went from thinking they were ok, to panicking."
'Things started to get ugly'
John Hawley, who was playing up front for Bradford, saw smoke starting to spread.
He said: "I could see a commotion in the stand and I remember shouting 'calm down, calm down, it's just a bit of smoke'.
"A minute or two later I was picking somebody up and throwing them over my shoulder and onto the pitch."
In the stand was 17-year-old Bradford fan Matthew Wildman, who was watching with friends. He had gone to the game on crutches as he suffered from arthritis.
He said: "Because everyone was enjoying themselves so much it was as if we couldn't tune into the fact that something was wrong, so even when people were being told there was a fire and we needed to move, it seemed to take an age for everyone to take it on board.
"When we had to move we moved into the back corridor. The back corridor quickly filled up because the doors were locked. As people started to realise they had to move away from them, there seemed to be a bit of a stampede.
"The back corridor started to fill up with smoke. That's when things started to get ugly."
The fire - later found to have been started by a discarded cigarette - spread quickly from the back of the stand to the front and in the void underneath, where years of rubbish had accumulated.
The wooden seating and the highly flammable roofing felt turned the whole terrace effectively into a giant tinder box. Some fans were buried as burning timbers and molten materials fell from the roof.
Lee Duxbury, a Bradford City apprentice at the time, was among those in the stand.
"Within minutes it had got worse and worse and then people started moving up the stairs," he said.
"By the time I got up and walked to the back alley, the flames were literally above us. It was impossible to think straight. There were people screaming, people pushing past people.
"As you were looking back and helping people you could see some horrific sights, where people were already trapped at the back."
'Pouring water from the toilets over people to stop them burning'
Minutes earlier Terry Slocombe, the police inspector on duty at the ground, had thought he was dealing with the start of a relatively harmless pitch invasion as the first fans started to move away from the seat of the fire and onto the playing surface. What he quickly became confronted with was an unfolding human tragedy.
"It just got hotter and hotter," he said.
"Dave Britton's hair caught fire - one of my bobbies. There was a lot of people going up and trying to help and pull people out. My jacket started burning. I lost one lady, I got her part way out and then she slipped back and it wasn't until later on that I was told someone else had got her out.
"We saw three people who were stuck in the gents' toilets under the stand and we went in... and the groundsman was actually pouring water from the toilets over these people to stop them burning."
Commentator Tony Delahunty initially carried on describing for radio listeners what he was witnessing.
In increasingly panicked tones, he said: "They're running out of that end of the ground at this moment. It looks like there could be a situation of panic and all the time people are spilling onto the pitch and we can see flames going up into the air. People are running around all round us."
He eventually abandoned his position in the stand.
"I wasn't burnt, but my knee had turned brown," he said. "The jeans I had on had turned brown at the front."
'The skin on my hands was bubbling'
Mr Wildman, meanwhile, was desperately trying to escape.
He said: "I'm a short person, so I was under these towering men around me and when they started to choke from the smoke and people were being jostled in a very thick, heavy crowd I was pushed down to the floor.
"That was actually helpful for me because as they were choking on the smoke above me I could breathe underneath everybody and as they started to get affected by the smoke they dropped onto me and I ended up being covered underneath other bodies on the floor."
He managed to struggle to the front of the stand, where there was an 8ft drop from the top of the retaining wall to the ground below.
"I looked down and found that the wall that I was stood in front of, all the paint was bubbling up," he said.
"Then, as I had my hands on the wall, I realised that all the skin on the backs of my hands was bubbling up as well, so it was a case of... now or never. I shouted out and threw myself over the wall."
Mr Wildman was caught by a fellow fan and eventually carried from the ground having suffered extensive burns.
As the rush for the exits continued, John Helm's commentary encapsulated the horror of what was happening.
"They came to celebrate the club's promotion to the Second Division for the first time in 50 years and now they're running for their lives," he said.
Recalling his thought process, Helm says: "I tried to be selective in what I was saying. My own private thoughts were, who is down there? And when the stand had gone, my word, that was traumatic.
"The first inkling I had [of the scale of the disaster] was when two little boys climbed up the banking to my commentary position and said 'there's two dead down there mister'."
'Some just sat there in the end'
It took just four-and-a-half minutes for the entire stand to be engulfed in the inferno.
Bradford defender Dave Evans, who had joined in the rescue efforts, quickly realised there were some who could not be saved.
"I remember being stood by the goalmouth and watching people in the stand and it was horrible," he said.
"People couldn't get out. In fact, some people just sat there in the end."
On the pitch, some fans were singing and dancing in almost celebratory mood, oblivious to the scale of the developing tragedy.
Terry Slocombe and his fellow officers struggled to get some to leave the ground.
He said: "We just stood in the middle of the field and there were bobbies' helmets all over, and coats, and we just stood there and thought, what the hell has happened?
"I've seen quite a few bodies during the course of my service, but this was off the scale.
"You couldn't understand how it happened, but you thought you could have done better. You thought you hadn't done enough."
Firefighter Ben Hanney, who was only in the ground to sell tickets for an upcoming charity football match, became part of a full-scale rescue effort.
He said: "It was the first time we had actually seen people losing their lives. As firefighters we had been to many fatalities, but we had never actually seen people losing their lives. In that fire we witnessed people losing their lives and that stays with you. You never get over that.
"Probably the worst day ever, I think that's how you could describe it."
'You think, could I have done more?'
After the fire burned itself out, emergency workers were left with the job of helping survivors and then of sifting through the wreckage that was left.
The human cost was profound - 54 Bradford fans and two from Lincoln died. Many others suffered lifelong scars.
Mr Hanney said: "At quarter past five I went home just to tell my wife was ok and I remember saying, 'I just want to go to the bedroom', and I just sat on the edge of the bed and I cried for five or ten minutes."
The shock of witnessing such devastation caused some to experience post-traumatic stress.
Terry Slocombe, who was later awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for bravery, said he suffered nightmares for weeks afterwards.
"I used to dream I was in a drainpipe, with fire at either end and I just couldn't get out," he said.
"We did get offered counselling eventually, but like all stupid men we thought we're hard enough to deal with this, it's not a problem. Suck up and deal with it."
Others blocked out the memories of what they had seen.
John Hawley said: "I'm fortunate, I think, in that my mind doesn't remember hardly any of it. I got some really nice letters saying 'thanks for saving me' and stuff like that and I can't remember it at all."
A memorial to the 56 who died now stands at Valley Parade. The fact that the figure is not far higher is testament to the bravery of the many people who risked their own lives to help rescue hundreds of others.
People like Ben Hanney, who reflects that it was a "miracle" that the death toll was not significantly greater.
"At first you think, could I have done more?" he said.
"And then you realise, no you couldn't - you did all you could."
