Bradford City Fire 40 years on: 'I always spare a thought for those who didn't go home'

But every year, he has attended the club’s memorial fixture and the city’s commemorative service, a way of paying his respects to all those who were killed in or affected by the Valley Parade disaster on May 11, 1985.

Last Saturday’s game was perhaps the most poignant memorial fixture to date for Ian, who has been a Bantams fan since the age of ten.

He was one of a group of singers, who, at half time, with former City player and manager Chris Kamara and internationally-renowned Yorkshire soprano Lesley Garrett, performed an orchestral adaptation of the club’s anthem Take Me Home, Midland Road on the pitch at the University of Bradford Stadium. It was a goosebumps moment that stirred a whole maelstrom of emotions, on a day which saw Bradford City clinch promotion to League One in a dramatic fashion.

Ian says: “I always have a moment when I pass the memorial outside the ground where I spare a thought for those who just got up that day, went to see a football match full of joy at being champions, and then didn’t go home.”

The 70-year-old, who lives in Sowerby Bridge, hasn’t talked much - to anyone - in the past four decades, about his recollections of that day. But since joining the Bantam of the Opera choir earlier this year, he’s moving away from “bottling it all up”.

The choir is made up of fifty Bradford City football fans who are going from singing on the terraces to performing opera. The BBC Radio Leeds initiative is part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations and will see the group showcase its talent throughout the year, including at a Yorkshire Day concert in Bradford.

For fellow choir member Jane Gray, the Bradford City performance last weekend was “what it’s all about”. “Everything else is a joyful bonus,” she says.

Jane’s father Jack Ludlam sadly lost his life in the fire at the age of 55. An avid Bantam fan, he had returned home from a caravanning holiday especially for the match, in order to celebrate the team’s victory. He and his friend were in the stand where the fire broke out.

“He just never came home,” says 65-year-old Jane, from Bradford. “We found out about (the incident) from his friend’s wife. She rang to ask if we had seen what was going on at Bradford City.”

“It was a long time before we found out anything for definite,” she continues. “(The wait) was just awful. I think our nervous systems went into survival mode so a lot of it is very hazy now. But it was a horrific time. Words fail to describe what it was like.”

Jane’s connection to the club has run deep ever since and she views the memorial events with great importance. Not only are they dedicated opportunities to remember those who died - her dad and his friend at the fore of her mind, of course - but for Jane, a self-employed life coach, they are also about recognising the wider reverberations of the day and the impact of the losses on families and the community.

“(The fire) had such an impact on so many people,” she says. “It’s also about remembering anybody that’s been affected in any way, particularly the emergency services and the people who were tending to the injured.”

Ian and his friend were among those who helped others get to safety. He recalls how the mood of the day took a drastic turn within a matter of minutes, from party mode to complete devastation.

“Some time into the game, there was a bit of a commotion to my left hand side,” he remembers. “As I looked across there was a pall of smoke emanating from the seats 40 yards on my left hand side towards the kop. At first I took little notice as I just expected it would get put out and everything would continue - the game was still proceeding.

“After a minute or two I looked over again and this pall of smoke ignited at the base. A ball of fire shot up the chimney of smoke and hit the stand roof and immediately set everything ablaze. I said to the chap that was with me ‘they’re not putting that out, we need to get out of here’.”

The pair climbed over the seats and wall in front of them to make their way to the pitch.

“People were falling down the terraces and were on the floor at the other side of the pitch wall. We were leaning over and pulling people free and getting them over the wall to us,” Ian says.

“We didn’t know at the time, until later in the evening, that anybody had died. We just knew people had been badly injured and that was bad enough. Obviously the mood of the day had totally changed.”

Ian’s involvement with the choir has led to him sharing his recollections publicly for the first time.

It was a “no-brainer” to apply to be involved, he says, after hearing ‘Kammy’ lead the call-out for singers. The broadcaster, who was diagnosed with the speech condition apraxia in 2022, has used singing to help him with his speech, wellbeing and mental health.

Ian has also found it to have therapeutic benefits after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease around ten years ago. For most of his career, he worked as a semi-professional singer touring the country, whilst holding down a ‘day job’ as a quantity surveyor in the construction industry.

He’d retired from regular work by the time of his Parkinson’s diagnosis - detected as a result of a left-side tremor, but he now sings again at least once a week.

“Having gone online and read everything I possibly could about this thing I had no understanding of, I kept coming back to the therapeutic advantages of singing and how it helps keep the voice strong among Parkinson’s sufferers,” he says.

Meanwhile Jane, like many others in the choir, has little singing experience, though it’s something she enjoys. She was drawn to apply as a result of her family’s strong connections with the club. “It’s exciting, it’s joyful, there’s that sense of community. It’s just amazing,” she says.

The choir is being supported by the world-renowned BBC Singers, with Doncaster-born Lesley Garrett also making guest appearances as an ambassador for the initiative. She sang with the group at the memorial game on Saturday, which raised funds to support the work of Bradford’s Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit.

Her extensive music career has seen her perform to huge audiences across the world, but Lesley admits she was more nervous about the memorial game performance than she had ever been before in her life.

“Because of its importance,” she says. Because there were people in the choir, and the crowd, who lost loved ones in the fire or had direct experiences of the tragedy forty years ago.

“There was so much emotion and love on that pitch,” she says. “It was one of the most moving performances I’ve ever taken part in.”