You'll receive an email with all of the top news stories every single morning. Simply type your email address into the box at the top of this article and hit 'subscribe'.Īnd that's it, job done. Well then sign up for the brilliant Daily Star football email newsletter!įrom the latest transfer news to the agenda-setting stories, get it all in your email inbox - don't miss a thing. West Yorkshire Police tonight said if any new evidence came to light about the Bradford tragedy they would “consider its significance and take appropriate action”.Want to be on the ball with all of the latest football news? Sutcliffe, who was the MP for Bradford South and deputy leader of Bradford City council at the time of the fire, says that he remains convinced by the conclusion of the Popplewell Inquiry that the fire was an accident. Martin asks: “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?”įormer Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe believes that a new investigation is not needed. She told him: “You know it wasn’t Stafford Heginbotham’s first fire, don’t you?” He began investigating the disaster after a conversation with his mother, Susan, on the ninth anniversary of the tragedy. He said his research even gave him nightmares about the fire. Martin says in his book '56: The Story of the Bradford Fire' that he and his family are no longer willing to “live the myth”.Ībout his findings, he wrote: “The more I dug, the more I found conclusions that I never imagined possible.” Gutted: The fire ripped through the stand quickly People have been coming up to me recently and saying ‘if it wasn’t for your dad we wouldn’t have a football club’," he said. "It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. But he said someone was arrested for arson and “locked up for that”. His brother Simon, 49, said he recalls about six or seven fires at his father’s factories. "I have never seen anybody more passionate about anything than he was about that club.” He saved the club on two separate occasions. "He devoted his entire life to that club. James, 47, said: “When you actually do your homework and see what he did for Bradford City Football Club it is a sickening accusation. Mr Heginbotham's sons defended their late father against the claims he was linked to eight other blazes. It’s not something a little boy of nine should see. He said he thinks about the tragedy every day. He added: “I don’t understand how it has taken 30 years to come out, it’s a very long time.” Karl, who owns his own fencing business, lives with his long-term partner and their two girls. “If that were the case someone would have taken it further if they smelt a rat.” but I say surely after what had gone on he would have been investigated, surely. Until someone proves it to you its not true, is it? If it is true it would change things, it would make me angry. He continued: “It doesn’t make me angry because I don’t know if it’s true or not and until someone proves it to me I feel the same really. Why would you do it in front of all those people?”
#Bradford city stadium fire man on fire full
“Why would you do it with all those people in? Why would you do it with a full stand of people? You would have done it when everyone left. He explained: “He could have set the fire going even after everyone had left and said ‘oh it must have been a cigarette and it’s gone up after’. However Karl, now 39, said he couldn’t believe that chairman Stafford Heginbotham would have set the fire. Tragedy: Sunday Mirror story at time underestimated victims (Image: Mirrorpix)
“God, just imagine if somebody had done that - had set it off deliberately.” “If someone had taken my grandmother away from me because of an insurance job, yeah, it would change things totally. “If he’d had that many fires, he must have been the unluckiest man in the world. It’s an accident, a disaster at the moment. If that was right it would change things totally. “My dad had a hunch that he had something to do with the stadium fire. Karl continued: “My family knew he had a toy shop in Bradford and there was a fire there but we didn’t know he’d had that many. Tickets were hard to get for what was planned as a Third Division promotion party against Lincoln City on May 11 of that year and his dad John, 45, had to sit on his own in another block. Speaking about the accusations in fellow survivor Martin Fletcher’s book, Karl, from Bradford, said: “I would hope after losing my grandma, and what happened to me and how much it scarred me that somebody didn’t set it off deliberately.” Tragically, Nellie died in the blaze which also injured 260 people. Karl Hepton, then aged nine, was lifted to safety by his grandmother Nellie Foster, 64, when fire broke out in the Bradford stand. A survivor of the 1985 Valley Parade fire tragedy has said he hopes it was not set off deliberately after a new book claimed former Bradford City chairman Stafford Heginbotham was connected to eight blazes before the fatal incident which killed 56 people.
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