Police call on City fans in hunt for missing man

Officers will be asking supporters if they can help shed any light on Graham Michael Whitton's disappearance at tomorrow night's match against Sheffield Wednesday at Valley Parade.

Mr Whitton, an avid Bantams fan, was 36 when he went missing on December 11, 1992.

He had left the Gardener's Arms public house, in Holme Top Lane, to make his way to the Old House At Home pub, on Little Horton Lane, but he never arrived.

Earlier that night he had been in the Old Vic Pub, at Park Lane.

Mr Whitton used to go to most home Bradford City home matches with his son, Anthony, who is now 23. A police appeal for information will appear in tomorrow's match programme and missing person's posters will be displayed around the ground.

Detective Inspector Chris Binns, who is leading the search, said: "Extensive police inquiries have failed to trace Graham. We are hoping that seeing his picture again may jog someone's memory. They may hold a vital piece of information and not realise its importance in our search."

Today, one of Mr Whitton's close friends spoke of the moment he left him in a pub on the night he disappeared.

Paul Lovett said he now believed he was dead but added: "What if I'd stayed for one more drink? Maybe none of this would have happened."

He recalled how they had been drinking at the New Inn, in Manchester Road, when he decided to head home with his girlfriend.

Mr Whitton told them he was going to walk to the Old Vic, in Park Lane.

Mr Lovett said the dad-of-two had been lodging with him at Louis Avenue on the city's Canterbury estate at the time he vanished.

He dismissed a theory that he might have been murdered over massive gambling debts.

Mr Lovett, a 37-year-old bus driver, who now lives in Dewsbury, said: "I had seen him gamble £300 in an afternoon when he was working and earning good money.

"But after he'd lost his job he just didn't bet anymore - he just went without it.

"He'd do a bit of glass collecting at the Old Vic and he never missed his rent. He always paid up on time and never asked for an extension or anything like that."

Mr Lovett said: "If he was being chased by gangsters for money, why would he pay me and not them?

"I have no idea what happened."

But he added: "Unfortunately I do now believe he is dead."

Mr Whitton left all his belongings at the house and they were later collected by police, said Mr Lovett.

"He had booked and paid for a holiday at the time but never came back to take it," he said.

More than a decade on, Mr Lovett still wonders what happened to his friend: "I do come back to Bradford sometimes and you can guarantee that even ten years later people ask me if I have heard anything about Graham."

"I am mystified about the whole thing."

Mr Lovett said Mr Whitton did have a casual girlfriend at the time and said he may have headed there after the pub but never arrived.

"I just don't know where he went that night," he said.

Mr Whitton had distinctive ginger hair and was known by his nickname "Ginger."

Detectives leading the inquiry have also ordered DNA tests to be carried out on a dismembered skeleton found in a shallow moorland grave in Oxenhope, in March 1997, in case it is that of Mr Whitton.

The tests are expected to take months to complete.

Anyone with information about the inquiry should contact Bradford Central Police Station helpdesk on (01274) 376459.