May 11, 1985, 40 years ago: Bradford City Association Football Club, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, hosts their last home game of the season at their stadium, Valley Parade. It turns into a disaster -- and not the kind of disaster their fans would have considered a 4-0 defeat to be.
Unlike American sports teams, English "football" "clubs" tended to keep their old stadiums for as long as possible. This was a bad idea, since many of them still had wood in their construction, and fans liked to smoke, and drop their cigarettes.
On this day, at Valley Parade, which opened in 1886 and had hardly been modernized at all since, Bradford, in England's Football League Division Three, were playing Lincoln City, of Lincolnshire. This game is the most interesting thing that has ever happened to the "Imps."
Bradford, the "Bantams," should be so lucky: They had won Division Three that season, earning promotion to Division Two, and nobody outside Bradford remembers that. And their only major trophy is the 1911 FA Cup, and that's so far back that nobody remembers that, either.
The stand before the fire
The match was covered by British network ITV, so the key moments survive without a film crew arriving in mid-disaster. At 3:40 PM, ITV commentator John Helm remarked upon a small fire in the main stand. In less than 4 minutes, with the windy conditions, the fire had engulfed the whole stand, trapping some people in their seats.
In the panic that ensued, fleeing crowds escaped on to the pitch, but others at the back of the stand tried to break down locked exit doors to escape. Many were burned to death at the turnstile gates, which had also been locked after the match had begun. A total of 56 people died, making it the biggest disaster in the history of English football to that point.
(This was topped in Scotland by the 66 who died at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow in 1971, and would be surpassed by the 97 deaths that have now been attributed to the Hillsborough Disaster in Sheffield in 1989.)
Helm reported that he could feel the heat, from all the way across the stadium. As he put it, "Quite extraordinary scenes at Valley Parade. This was supposed to be a day of utter joy, triumph and celebration. It's turning into a nightmare."
There were many cases of heroism, with more than 50 people later receiving police awards or commendations for bravery.
Nevertheless, a bad year for English soccer -- which had already seen several notorious incidents of hooliganism, including a riot of Millwall fans at Luton Town 2 months earlier -- got even worse. On the same day as the Valley Parade fire, Birmingham City's promotion from the Second Division was marred by a riot by Leeds United fans, in which a 14-year-old spectator was crushed to death by a collapsing wall.
Both clubs were then known for their infamous hooligan firms: Leeds had the Leeds Service Crew, while Birmingham City had the Zulu Army -- named in tribute to the 1964 film that launched Michael Caine to stardom, but also because it was the first widely-known hooligan firm to have been racially integrated.
And there was more to come, in Brussels, Belgium, as the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Italian team Juventus resulted in 39 deaths, with severe repercussions for the English game.
Bradford City played home games at other grounds in West Yorkshire for 19 months, while Valley Parade was rebuilt, opening on December 14, 1986, just in time to get it in for the 100th Anniversary of the original stadium. Today, it is a modern all-seater stadium, holding 25,136 spectators, with a memorial to the victims at its north end.
The disaster led to rigid new safety standards in British stadiums, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. It was also a catalyst for the substantial redevelopment and modernization of many British football grounds in the years to come.
Bradford City continues to support the burn unit at the University of Bradford hospital as its official charity.
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