The blaze that killed 56 football fans at Bradford City’s Valley Parade ground in 1985 was just one of at least nine fires at businesses owned by or associated with the club’s then chairman, according to extraordinary evidence published for the first time. The revelations are contained in a book written by Martin Fletcher, a Bradford fan who lost three generations of his family in the stadium fire. Fletcher believes the fire was not an accident and says he and his family are no longer willing to “live the myth”. Fletcher managed to escape after the timber main stand at Valley Parade turned into a death trap during Bradford’s game against Lincoln City on 11 May 1985. His brother, Andrew, 11, was the youngest victim and his father John, 34, uncle Peter, 32, and grandfather Eddie, 63, all perished. Martin Fletcher, who was 12 at the time, has spent the past 15 years investigating what happened and his book, Fifty-Six – The Story of the Bradford Fire, is published on Thursday 16 April. The book, serialised by the Guardian today and tomorrow, reveals there had been at least eight other fires at business premises either owned by, or connected to, Stafford Heginbotham, Bradford’s then-chairman, in the previous 18 years, resulting in huge insurance claims. Fletcher does not make any direct allegations but he does believe Heginbotham’s history with fires, resulting in payouts of around £27m in today’s terms, warranted further investigation. “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?” he asks. The disaster at Valley Parade came at a time, according to Fletcher’s evidence, when the businessman was in desperate financial trouble, unable to pay his workforce beyond that month. Heginbotham had learned two days before the fire it would cost £2m to bring the ground up to safety standards required by Bradford’s promotion from the old Third Division that season. Yet this has never been reported and did not feature in the Popplewell Inquiry, chaired by the then high court judge Oliver Popplewell, which held its investigation only three weeks after the fire. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/15/bradford-fire-stafford-heginbotham-martin-fletcher
"was just one of at least nine fires at businesses owned by or associated with the club’s then chairman"
Nine ****ing fires on business premises and no **** asked any questions? You don't need to be a UFO watching weirdo to think that's a bit odd. How much did Bradford's chairman take the insurance companies for?
Maybe one of his friends suffered from that mental disorder where you light fires just so you can be the hero who phoned the fire brigade. It's very easy to draw conclusions from a bit of media tittle tattle but it doesn't mean they're the right ones.
56 people died but as none of them were scousers (in which case I'd suspect Dan's involvement) no **** gives a ****.
WTF is this - a quarterly meeting of the National Cynics Society? The inquiry at the time didn't indicate any wrong doing so that's good enough for me
a book written by Martin Fletcher, a Bradford fan who lost three generations of his family in the stadium fire. Fletcher believes the fire was not an accident I'm sure he took an objective approach to the conspiracy theory.
He makes no accusations, he lays out the evidence and allows others to draw their own conclusions. 1) May 1967: fire in Stafford Heginbotham’s factory at three-storey Cutler Heights Lane, Bradford 2) April 1968: fire at Genefoam Ltd, managing director Stafford Heginbotham, Cutler Heights Lane 3) August 1970: store-room explosion at Matgoods, founded by Heginbotham, in Wyke, Bradford 4) December 1971: tenant fire at Castle Mills building, Cleckheaton, owned by Heginbotham 5) August 1977: fire at Yorkshire Knitting Mills, in Heginbotham-owned Douglas Mills building, Bradford 6) December 1977: fire at four-story Coronet Marketing factory, Leeds Road, Bradford. Coronet Marketing a subsidiary of Tebro Toys, owned by Heginbotham 7) November 1977: fire with toxic fumes at Douglas Mills factory 8) June 1981: fire in plastics factory at Heginbotham-owned Douglas Mills
