Stafford Heginbotham
The fire occurred immediately after the club won league promotion, which mandated a costly upgrading of spectator facilities.
A book published in 2015 revealed the extent of Heginbotham's fire insurance claims before the disaster, which had led to him being the subject of local innuendo about arson.
In the light of the book's revelations, the former head of the public inquiry into the disaster maintained that there was still no reason to think there had been anything sinister about the fire, although he acknowledged that Heginbotham's serial insurance claims were cause for suspicion.
Six years later the Bradford Telegraph & Argus quoted Heginbotham as saying "I have just been unlucky" after the business suffered two major fires in succession.
[6][7] It is a matter of dispute how seriously innuendo about Heginbotham being a serial arsonist and insurance fraudster was meant, but when Bradford businessmen in the 1970s saw smoke in the sky they joked "That will be one of Stafford's.
"[13] In the penultimate game of the 1984–85 season the club had secured promotion to Division Two, thereby making the replacement of existing spectator terracing, which dated from 1911, a necessary expense under safety regulations.
According to Martin Fletcher, Heginbotham lacked the financial resources to pay for new terracing, and was at that time having difficulty meeting the wage bill and running costs at the club.
Interviewed immediately afterwards, Heginbotham, who had been in the director's box about 50 yards away from where the fire started, said that he thought two flares or smoke bombs had gone off shortly before.
An inquiry allegedly heard from a man and his nephew who had been seated near the apparent origin of the blaze, and concluded that a lit cigarette had fallen through gaps in the floor and ignited accumulated paper rubbish, although there was no testimony suggesting who could have been responsible.
[20] Bradford City received insurance proceeds and local government grants totalling £7 million in today's terms to rebuild facilities.
[21][22] Before the disaster the club, which had been seeking to comply with grant-issuing bodies in order to secure funding, had carried out some safety work on the stand after Heginbotham was warned by the local authority of the danger of a cigarette falling through the flooring and igniting rubbish.
[5] In the aftermath of the Bradford deaths Heginbotham's reputation for deliberately setting fires received little or no mention in the local press, despite an accusatory graffiti campaign targeting his businesses.
