Valley Parade in Bradford, West Yorkshire, was built in 1886 and was initially the home ground of Manningham Rugby Football Club.

However, when Bradford City won promotion to the highest level of English football, Division One, in 1908, club officials sanctioned an upgrade programme.

As a result, Bradford-born captain Peter Jackson was presented with the league trophy before the final game of the season with mid-table Lincoln City at Valley Parade on 11 May 1985.

[7] As it was the first piece of league silverware that the club had captured since they won the Division Three (North) title 56 years earlier, 11,076 supporters were in the ground.

It detailed the safety work which would be carried out at Valley Parade as a result of the club's promotion, admitting the ground was "inadequate in so many ways for modern requirements".

At 3:44 pm, five minutes before half-time, the first sign of a fire–a glowing light–was noticed three rows from the back of block G,[10][15] as reported by television commentator John Helm.

[citation needed] Spectators later spoke of initially feeling their feet becoming warmer; one of them ran to the back of the stand for a fire extinguisher but found none.

Burning timbers and molten materials fell from the roof onto the crowd and seating below, and dense black smoke enveloped a passageway behind the stand, where many spectators were trying to escape.

[11] There were no extinguishers in the stand's passageway for fear of vandalism, and one spectator ran to the clubhouse to find one but was overcome by smoke and impeded by others trying to escape.

Footage of the accident at this point shows levels of confusion among the spectators–while many were trying to escape or to cross the pitch to the relative safety of the neighbouring stands, other spectators were observed cheering or waving to the still-rolling pitchside cameras.

[11] Those who escaped were taken out of the ground to neighbouring homes and a pub, where a television screened World of Sport, which broadcast video recorded of the fire just an hour after it was filmed.

Uncensored coverage of the fire was transmitted minutes after the event on World of Sport and the BBC's Grandstand after the video cassette was physically driven to Yorkshire Television.

[14] They included three who tried to escape through the toilets, 27 who were found by exit K and turnstiles 6 to 9 at the rear centre of the stand, and two elderly people who had died in their seats.

The main stand at Bradford was not surrounded by fencing, and therefore most of the spectators in it could escape onto the pitch – if they had been penned in then the death toll would inevitably have been in the hundreds if not the thousands.

[citation needed] However, the turnstiles were locked and none of the stadium staff were present to unlock them, leaving no escape through the normal entrances and exits.

A discarded cigarette and a dilapidated wooden stand, which had survived because the club did not have the money to replace it, and accumulated paper litter, were considered to have conspired to cause the worst disaster in the history of the Football League at that time .

Criticising Bradford City during the case, Mr. Michael Ogden QC, highlighted that the Club 'gave no or very little thought to fire precautions', despite repeated warnings.

[33] During the case, Sir Joseph Cantley stated that: "It is only right that I should say that I think it would be unfair to conclude that Heginbotham, Tordoff, the Board of Directors, or any of them, were intentionally and callously indifferent to the safety of spectators using the stand.

By this date the appeal fund set up for survivors had paid out more than £4m with further payouts expected as the effects of physical and mental injury were determined.

[42] 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.

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 Sylvia Graucob, a then Jersey-based former West Yorkshire woman.

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, the two Lincoln City supporters who were amongst the 56 to die at Bradford.

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.

[47] Parrs Wood Press published Four Minutes to Hell: The Story of the Bradford City Fire (2005) by author Paul Firth;[48] the title refers to the estimated time it took for the stand to be completely ablaze from the first flames being spotted.

[49] Another book; 56: The Story of the Bradford Fire (2015) was written by Martin Fletcher to discuss how the disaster was caused, and follows his loss of his father, brother, uncle and grandfather.

The Documentary highlighted the 'poison pen letters' and graffiti targeted at the then club chairman Stafford Heginbotham over accusations that he was in some way personally responsible for the deaths of the 56 people who died at the fire.

The fact the inquiry also embraced the investigation into another incident which happened on the same day, a riot in which a young boy died at Birmingham City, makes it seem more frivolous.

[54] On 17 April 2015, retired Detective Inspector Raymond Falconer, in a report by the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, said the police were aware of an Australian man who admitted to starting the fire.

[55] Following the 30th anniversary of the fire, a number of news organisations named this man as Eric Bennett who was visiting his nephew in Bradford from Australia and attended the game on the day.

"[57] Raymond Falconer's reliability had previously been questioned by Daniel Taylor in The Guardian who stated that: "The Bradford Telegraph and Argus described him as a 'top detective'.