Bradford City Stadium Fire - Aftermath

Aftermath

The inquiry into the disaster, chaired by Sir Oliver Popplewell and known as the Popplewell Inquiry, led to the introduction of new legislation to improve safety at the UK's football grounds. One of the main outcomes of the inquiry was prohibiting the construction of new wooden grandstands at all UK sports grounds.

At the time of the disaster, many stadiums had perimeter fencing between the stands and the pitch to prevent incidents of football hooliganism – particularly pitch invasions – which were rife during the 1980s. The main stand at Bradford was not surrounded by fencing, so the spectators were not penned in and so most of them were able to escape onto the pitch – if they had been penned in then the death toll could have been in the thousands. However, the turnstiles were locked and none of the stadium staff were present to unlock them – meaning that there was no escape for those who attempted to escape through the normal entrances and exits. Fans in the next stand (the "Bradford End") pulled down the fence separating them from the pitch.

The Popplewell Inquiry found that the club had been warned about the fire risk that the rubbish accumulating under the stand had posed. However, as there was no real precedent, most Bradfordians accepted that the fire was a terrible piece of misfortune. A discarded cigarette and a dilapidated wooden stand, which had survived because the club did not have the money to replace it, were considered to have conspired to cause the worst disaster in the history of the Football League.

The Bradford Disaster Appeal fund, set up within 48 hours of the disaster, eventually raised over £3.5 million. The most memorable of hundreds of fundraising events was a recreation of the 1966 World Cup Final, which began with the original starting teams of both England and West Germany, and was held at Leeds United's stadium, Elland Road, in July 1985 to raise funds for the Appeal fund. England won the re-match 6–4.

Part of the Appeal funds were raised by a cover version by The Crowd of the Gerry & The Pacemakers hit "You'll Never Walk Alone", which reached number 1 in the UK Singles chart. The money raised from this record was contributed to fund the internationally renowned burns unit that was established in partnership between the University of Bradford and Bradford Royal Infirmary, immediately after the fire, which has also been Bradford City FC's official charity for well over a decade. The unit's innovative use of a sling to relieve the pain of severe burn injuries and reduce the risk of them becoming infected in the days immediately after the fire gave birth to a medical product that is still in use today.

A capacity 6,000 crowd attended a multi-denominational memorial service, held on the pitch in the sunny shadow of the burnt out stand at Valley Parade in July 1985. A giant Christian cross, made up of two large charred wooden members that had once been part of the stand, was constructed in front of the middle of the stand and behind the pitchside speaker's platform. Part of the service was also held in Urdu and Punjabi as a sign of appreciation to the local ethnically Asian Subcontinental community in Manningham, Bradford and around Valley Parade that had opened up their doors to Bradford City supporters in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. The next day work began on clearing the burnt out shell of the stand, and Justice Popplewell released his findings into the disaster.

Four police officers, Police Constables David Britton and John Richard Ingham and Chief Inspectors Charles Frederick Mawson and Terence Michael Slocombe, and two spectators, Richard Gough and David Hustler, were awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for their actions. PCs Peter Donald Barrett and David Charles Midgley, along with spectators Michael William Bland and Timothy Peter Leigh received the Queen's Commendation for Brave Conduct. In total, 28 police officers and 22 supporters, who were publicly documented as having saved at least one life, later received police commendations or bravery awards. Together, flanked by undocumented supporters, they managed to clear all but one person who made it to the front of the stand. Club coach Terry Yorath incurred minor injuries while taking part in the rescue.

While Valley Parade was re-developed, Bradford City played games at various neighbouring grounds: Elland Road, Leeds; Leeds Road, Huddersfield; and Odsal Stadium, Bradford. Valley Parade re-opened on 14 December 1986, when Bradford City beat an England XI 2–1 in a friendly. Since then, it has been further re-developed and, today, Valley Parade is a modern 25,136 all-seater stadium, which is virtually unrecognisable from how it was at the time of the disaster, save for the original clubhouse that still stands beside the main stand, and the flank support wall that runs down the Hollywell Ash Lane at the "Bradford End".

Whilst Bradford City prospered in the 2nd Division – only missing out on promotion to the 1st Division in 1988 after failing to beat Ipswich Town at home on the final day of their first full season back at Valley Parade — Lincoln City suffered two successive relegations, first to the 4th Division in 1986, and again in 1987, becoming the first team to be automatically relegated from the Football League itself. They were immediately promoted back to the Football League in 1988.

Although some attributed Lincoln City's sudden demise to the psychological effects of the fire on its players (together with the resignation of successful manager Colin Murphy shortly before the fire), it symbolised the wider crisis that the introduction of new safety legislation brought to Lincoln's Sincil Bank home. The timber construction of St. Andrew's Stand, Main Stand and the roof of its popular Railway End terrace were immediately condemned as fire hazards, which saw seating capacity briefly cut to nil. Lincoln City's board responded by committing £1,100,000 to their ground's renovation in the year that immediately followed the fire at Valley Parade, and over the following decade made improvements that eventually totalled £3,000,000. After its renovation in 1990 they named the home end of their ground the 'Stacey-West Stand', in honour of Bill Stacey and Jim West, who were two visiting Lincoln City supporters who were amongst the 56 to die at Bradford. Today, with its 10,120 all-seater capacity Lincoln can rightly boast that they have "one of the best stadiums in lower league football", which is fitting homage to their tragic involvement in events at Bradford in 1985. Each year Lincoln send representatives to the annual memorial service in Bradford city centre, and between 2007 and 2009 were managed by Bradford's captain that day, Peter Jackson.

At Valley Parade there are now two memorials. One, now re-situated to that end of the stand where the fire began, is a sculpture donated on the initial re-opening of Valley Parade in December 1986 by a then Jersey-based former West Yorkshire woman. The other, situated by the main entrance, was donated by the club after its £7,500,000 renovation of the original main stand in 2002. It has a black marble fascia on which the names and ages of those that died are inscribed in gold, and a black marble platform on which people can leave flowers and mementos. There is a twin memorial sculpture, unveiled on 11 May 1986, which has the names of the dead inscribed on it. They were donated by Bradford's twin city of Hamm, Germany, and are situated in front of Bradford City Hall in both locations. After the fire, Bradford City also announced they would thereafter play with black trim on their shirt collars and arms as a permanent memorial to those who had died.

By the City Hall memorials, in a tradition similar to Remembrance Day, a short memorial service follows a minute's silence held on the 11th hour of the 11th day of each May. This is perhaps because 24 of those who died at Valley Parade were above the age of 60 and would have lived through or served during World War II, and the 40th anniversary of VE Day was only 3 days before the fire, and because a dignitary party from Hamm in the Ruhr in Germany was in the stand on the day of the fire, because of the civic ceremonies of reconciliation that surrounded this anniversary.

The two sides met for the first time after the fire in April 1989, when they arranged a benefit match in aid of the Hillsborough disaster, at Valley Parade.

On the 25th anniversary of the fire, the University of Bradford established the United Kingdom's largest academic research centre in skin sciences as an extension to its plastic surgery and burns research unit.