56: The Story of the
Bradford Fire
by Martin Fletcher
(Bloomsbury, £16.99)

THERE is a telling sentence at the end of the first chapter of 56, Martin Fletcher’s excellent and necessary account of the fire at Bradford City FC’s Valley Parade ground in 1985.

Having given a brief history of his family and detailed how his father and uncle became successful self-made businessmen, Fletcher writes: “We should have been poster children for Thatcherism, only we were football fans.”

That one line speaks volumes for the attitude towards supporters at the time. At best, the authorities treated them as a troublesome inconvenience, at worst with barely disguised contempt.

Hooliganism marred the game in the ’80s. Yet neither of the two major disasters to beset English football in that decade — at a combined cost of 152 lives — was caused by violence. Both the Hillsborough disaster in ’89 and the Bradford fire were the consequence of the action, or inaction, of the authorities. That was magnified by the decrepit conditions of the two grounds concerned and it’s this point more than any other that is central to Fletcher’s book.

What is initially a rite of passage that will be familiar to most readers who started watching football 30 or so years ago, quickly descends into something altogether more horrific as Fletcher details the fire he escaped.

He was aged just 12 at the time and his younger brother Andrew, his father John, his uncle Peter and his grandfather Eddie were among the 56 people killed in the blaze. It is Fletcher’s long-term battle to come to terms with his trauma and loss that ultimately led him to seek answers about what happened and to write this book.

In the course of his research he uncovered the fact that at least eight other businesses linked to the club’s then chairman, the now-deceased Stafford Heginbotham, had been destroyed by fires.

The book and its strong implication that the Valley Parade blaze was started deliberately — Fletcher makes no direct accusation — has divided opinion.

Bradford’s local paper the Telegraph and Argus has said that “there is not enough here to justify reopening these very painful wounds” and, in a somewhat unseemly move, even questioned where the proceeds of the book are going.

It’s an attitude that suggests they feel embarrassment that someone else has done their job for them.

While it’s true that there is no new evidence or silver bullet directly concerning the stadium fire, Fletcher’s findings shine a bright spotlight on much that has been in the public domain for the best part of three decades but simply ignored.

His research is comprehensive, compelling, credible and must not be ignored. He repeatedly exposes flaws in the official inquiry which only serves to raise more questions about what actually happened.

And what of the inquiry itself? It lasted just five days and due to its narrow terms of reference, set by the then home secretary Leon Brittan, did not seek to apportion blame — something it absolutely should have done.

Even if you don’t buy the arson implication, the fact remains that the stand which burned down was made of wood, covered by a flammable bitumen roof and had decades of equally flammable rubbish accumulated below.

It was a huge fire hazard and Heginbotham, among others, should have been held accountable for that at least, something Fletcher’s book finally does.

Why has it taken so long? Well, the victims were only football fans after all.