Valley Parade disaster: former sports minister says new allegations do not merit inquiry

This season marks the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. The revelation comes from a book written by one of the survivors, Martin Fletcher.

Fletcher lost his brother, Andrew, 11, father John, 34, uncle Peter, 32, and grandfather Eddie, 63. Fletcher was 12 at the time and has spent the last 15 years investigating what happened and has published a book, Fifty-Six – The Story of the Bradford Fire, which the Guardian has serialised.

But former sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe says new allegations surrounding the Bradford City fire in 1985 which claimed 56 lives do not justify a new inquiry into the disaster.

Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South and deputy leader of Bradford City council at the time of the tragedy, says he knew Heginbotham "flew by the seat of his pants" in terms of the finances of the club but remains convinced by the conclusion of the inquiry by high court judge Mr Justice Popplewell that the fire was an accident.

Sutcliffe told Press Association Sport: "Stafford Heginbotham was one of those football club chairmen of which there were many at the time who flew by the seat of his pants. I was deputy leader of the city council at the time and he was did fly by the seat of his pants when it came to paying the bill for the police and so on.

"But I think the inquiry was very thorough at the time and I don't think there needs to be another because of this. I do not believe there was any sort of cover-up and in fact the inquiry led to a lot of recommendations on stadiums that together with the Taylor report came up with the right answers for football.

"There will always be speculation but I just think it was a tragedy that cost the lives of 56 people and injured many more, and has scarred the city for many years."

According to the book, Bradford owner Heginbotham had seen at least eight either other fires at businesses he had been linked to in the 18 years previous to the fire. While Fletcher makes no direct allegations regarding the fire, he does ask a simple question: “Could any man really be as unlucky as Heginbotham had been?”

The book states that Heginbotham was in deep financial trouble: he was, according to the account, unable to pay his workers past the end of the month and there were expensive upgrade works due on the ground after Bradford’s promotion to the old second division.

Fires at Heginbotham’s other business interests had seen him receive insurance pay outs to the tune of £27 million if adjusted for inflation.

The Popplewell Inquiry into the disaster, heard none of this information and, after only five days of testimony ruled that the fire was most likely started by a match or a cigarette.

The fire started just before half-time during Bradford's final home match of the 1984-85 season against Lincoln City. As well as the 56 who were killed, more than 260 people were injured.

The tragedy is often referred to as English football's forgotten disaster, as it happened 18 days before 39 Italian fans lost their lives at Heysel Stadium before Liverpool's European Cup final against Juventus in Brussels.