THERE are a number of reasons for drawing public attention to the 30th anniversary of the Bradford City fire disaster.

Not just to remind a younger generation that on Saturday, May 11, 1985, on the last day of the 1984/85 Football League season, the main stand at Valley Parade caught light shortly before half-time in City's match against Lincoln City, killing 54 City fans and two from Lincoln.

Nor is there any need to expound on the theme of triumph - City had won the Third Division Championship playing a brand of exciting attacking football - turning into disaster.

It wasn't the first disaster to kill fans at a game. In Britain alone there had been three since 1902: two at Ibrox Park, Glasgow, in 1902 and 1971, which killed a total of 91 spectators and injured more than 700, and one in 1946 at Bolton Wanderers' old Burnden Park, when 33 spectators were killed in a crush of fans trying to watch an FA Cup quarter-final against Stoke City.

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Unbelievably, it wasn't the last one either. At the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, a mere 18 days after the Valley Parade fire, 39 fans were killed, mainly Italians, and 600 injured after a wall collapsed following running battles between Liverpool and Juventus fans at the European Cup Final.

Four years later, in April, 1989, during the FA Cup semi-final between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool at Hillsborough, Sheffield, 95 Liverpool fans were killed in a crush of spectators.

We remember the 56 who died at Valley Parade and the hundreds who were injured or traumatised by the events of that spring afternoon.

But we also mark that day for what Bradford, individually and collectively, made out of those ashes and ruins:-

  • The generosity of those who gave money, time and effort to the disaster fund appeal that was created within a week of the fire.
  • The creation of the charitable trust which managed that appeal and, without controversy, organised the distribution of more than £4m to the families of the bereaved and injured within a year.
  • And especially the setting up and maintenance over 30 years of the pioneering Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit.