39 years ago on Saturday 11th May.

Curryman

Curryman

Well-known member
56 people went to a football match never to return home.

I was a landlord of a pub in Bradford on that fateful day and have never forgotten those I knew, the actual fire, which I could see, the pictures that emerged from the disaster, the immediate panic and the aftermath, and even now writing this I have tears in my eyes.

I will be at the service on Saturday laying some flowers for those who perished, and remembering those I knew who never came home.
 
One of my ex work colleagues was policeman at Bradford. he left the force eventually. ex Pc Tim Mills. same age . the footage is frightening. IT went up so quickly.
 
I was at a union conference in Eastbourne when it came on the news. Everyone in the hotel was gathered around the telly watching it unfold. Awful, just awful.
 
We played Wrexham at home, drew 0 0. Remember seeing the images on TVs in Rumbelows in town on the way back home. Absolutely shocking and still the case now.
 
I was a lifeguard at St-Annes open air pool at the time and we were all joking about it saying things like 'that'll cause about a tenners worth of improvements'. Went to the pub after work and found out the full horror we didn't know until then. A bad bad day.
 
In reply to some of the posts on here. One of the worst things of the day was not knowing. We had all seen it live on TV and I could certainly see the fire and smoke from my pub. No such thing as mobile phones then, and the landlines were chock a block. We had a couple of blokes missing from our pub whose wives were in pieces. I opened as usual at 5.30 and it was like a wake. the two lads eventually turned up , and had been trying to help as far as possible in the mayhem. There was no way they could contact their wives and families apart from walking home or to our pub. They fortunately finally turned up about 3 hours later, having had one or two on the way back. The look of relief on peoples faces was amazing , and their wives went bananas with them. Obviously relieved they were safe.

Other than that there were two customers from my previous pub who were lost and one who was severely burnt. He died some years later, never really recovering from his injuries. A lovely bloke.

JohnMajorta, your Policeman friend , much like myself, but more so, has probably never fully recovered from the shocking scenes that day and I know, when teaching Health & Safety the course used footage from the disaster to show how fire spreads. I had to put the short video on and leave the room. It still haunts me, and writing about it here helps a little.

eat my goal, it was a terribly sad day which affected not only those who lost friends and family but also the general population of the City and its environs. 54 of those who died were Bradford City Supporters and two were Lincoln City supporters who are often forgotten when the fire is mentioned. They should all be remembered.
 
Curryman said:
In reply to some of the posts on here. One of the worst things of the day was not knowing. We had all seen it live on TV and I could certainly see the fire and smoke from my pub. No such thing as mobile phones then, and the landlines were chock a block. We had a couple of blokes missing from our pub whose wives were in pieces. I opened as usual at 5.30 and it was like a wake. the two lads eventually turned up , and had been trying to help as far as possible in the mayhem. There was no way they could contact their wives and families apart from walking home or to our pub. They fortunately finally turned up about 3 hours later, having had one or two on the way back. The look of relief on peoples faces was amazing , and their wives went bananas with them. Obviously relieved they were safe.

Other than that there were two customers from my previous pub who were lost and one who was severely burnt. He died some years later, never really recovering from his injuries. A lovely bloke.

JohnMajorta, your Policeman friend , much like myself, but more so, has probably never fully recovered from the shocking scenes that day and I know, when teaching Health & Safety the course used footage from the disaster to show how fire spreads. I had to put the short video on and leave the room. It still haunts me, and writing about it here helps a little.

eat my goal, it was a terribly sad day which affected not only those who lost friends and family but also the general population of the City and its environs. 54 of those who died were Bradford City Supporters and two were Lincoln City supporters who are often forgotten when the fire is mentioned. They should all be remembered.
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i can well imagine how it traumatised the city.

fair play to you curryman for remembering them and keeping them in our thoughts.

also sad to think that our own (wooden) west stand was an accident waiting to happen at that time. very much a case of 'there but for the grace of god.'
 
Remember listening to it - suppose it was when football was on Radio 2 and they didn’t play the Sports Report music at 5 which is when we knew it was serious ☹️
 
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