30 years ago today

56 people went to a football match and never came home.

RIP the 56, we should never forget.

I remember the day well, we had just won 2-0 at Crystal Palace with Kev Drinkell scoring his final 2 goals for the club. I'll never forget watching those haunting images on the TV that evening and John Helm's distressing commentary.

My abiding memory was seeing the Bradford fans singing and dancing on the pitch in front of the cameras whilst the stand behind was ablaze.

A very sad day indeed

   I will not say who this guy is because it is still a huge thing with his awful memories of this tragic day, the guy concerned was a fellow player with myself in the seventies.

After finally leaving the Proffessional football industry he went scouting for a league club of which he knew the Manager.
On the day of this disaster he had told his wife that he was coming over to Grimsby to watch a game and meet up with a few of his ex teamates from Town, me being one of them.

Unfortunatly right at the last minute he was told to go to watch the Bradford game but he never informed his wife that he was only local.

. As this dreadful disaster took place and the full amount of possible deaths that were made became a positive his wife rang me to make sure that my friend was in Blundel Park and not Bradford my wife had to tell her that he had indeed gone to Bradford instead of Grimsby due to further instructions from the team he was scouting for at the time and would meet up with me in the future..

Well she was stricken down to the ground and did not know what to do at all. All was well though because this ex fellow teamate of Grimsby Town was indeed a hero he was in the stand that collapsed through the heavy fire and helped to drag people out to safety and saved a lot of people who were struggling to get out of the stand.

My phone never stopped ringing from his wife my friend was suffering from severe shock and would not leave the ground while he thought people were still trapped and when he finally went home to Halifax his wife collapsed with relief and rung me to tell me the only bit of good news that he had got home. Talk about relief just to listen to his voice was tremendous and then years later I got told what is contribution had been well the more I heard he should have been honoured in some way. Lets hope that this awful disaster never happens again.

Dave B oylen

Great story that Dave, Thanks for sharing

Quoted from The_Laughing_Mariner

Great story that Dave, Thanks for sharing

100% this - it's all the personal tragedies that make this something that must never be forgotten so sharing that story Dave means a lot more than just reading newspaper / internet articles

I too was at Palace watching Town while the Bradford / Lincoln game was taking place and to be honest I had no real clue as to what had gone on...another absolutely sad day for football

There but for the grace of God etc...

RIP the 56  

Quoted from FishOutOfWater

100% this - it's all the personal tragedies that make this something that must never be forgotten so sharing that story Dave means a lot more than just reading newspaper / internet articles

I too was at Palace watching Town while the Bradford / Lincoln game was taking place and to be honest I had no real clue as to what had gone on...another absolutely sad day for football

There but for the grace of God etc...

RIP the 56  

I also remember that we went out in London on the evening and they well selling early editions of the Sunday papers. I can recall reading an article about the incident in The Sunday People and they were reporting that "Nobody is thought to have been seriously hurt!" How wrong they were.

I was in hospital on this day and remember going down to the tv room for a ciggy and listen to the scores come through but all that came through was the harrowing events of that dreadful day.
RIP the 56 that went to watch a game of football and never returned.  

Will always remember that day as I was in 6th form at school and by coincidence I was at a school athletics meeting in Bradford that day.  Just as it was finishing we saw the smoke and heard the sirens and afterwards heard the terrible news.

Quoted from arryarryarry

My abiding memory was seeing the Bradford fans singing and dancing on the pitch in front of the cameras whilst the stand behind was ablaze.

I don't think at first they had the slightest idea anyone had been hurt let alone killed.