Page 136 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

IT WAS THE DAY WHEN, 128 MILES UP THE ROAD AT VALLEY PARADE IN
BRADFORD, 56 SUPPORTERS LOST THEIR LIVES WHEN FIRE BROKE OUT INSIDE THE
MAIN STAND DURING THEIR THIRD DIVISION GAME AGAINST LINCOLN CITY.

It was May 11, 1985 – and it was to go down in football history for all the
wrong reasons.

Because Ian did not die in the fire; he died when a 12ft wall collapsed on top
of him in Birmingham.

He died as a result of some of the worst violence ever seen at a British football
match, likened in the subsequent investigation to the Battle of Agincourt.

While Bradford, Hillsborough and Heysel continue to hog the headlines, the
tragic teenager is football’s forgotten victim.

The creaking and crumbling of the wall at St Andrew’s were barely audible at
first above the violent din of baying mobs of rival hooligans bent on trouble.

Blues and Leeds fans had a reputation for trouble. They were among
hooliganism’s heavyweights.

Within seconds, an almighty rumble shook the stadium as the wall crashed to
the ground below, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air. Cars that
had been parked beneath were wrecked by the rubble that crashed on top
of them.

Standing beneath the wall was Ian. It is thought he was trying to shelter from
the violent scenes at the game.

He suffered fatal head injuries and died in Smethwick’s Neurological Hospital
the following day.

Tensions had been running high throughout the final day clash between
Birmingham City and Leeds that overcast May day in 1985.

But no-one could have envisaged the ugly scenes of violence that followed
the final whistle.
The fighting was described by Justice Popplewell, during the Popplewell
Committee investigation into football in 1985 as more like “the Battle of
Agincourt than a football match”.

A thin blue line of police officers, in little more than their tunics and helmets
and armed with just wooden truncheons, faced baying crowds ripping down
fences.
It was only their continual charges, and the work of the police horses, that
kept the fans apart as the battle ebbed and flowed. Seats were torn up and Page136
bottles hurled at police; a refreshment bar was set on fire and wrecked.