The wooden structure was quickly ablaze heat and thick smoke meant spectators had only minutes to escape. Just before half time in the final game of the season a fire started at one end of the stand that would have to be replaced. According to author Martin Fletcher, Heginbotham lacked the financial resources to pay for new terracing, and was at that time having difficulty meeting the wage bill and running costs at the club. Hegginbotham received an estimate of £2 million for the construction of a new stand. In the penultimate game of the 1984–85 season the club had secured promotion to Division Two, thereby making the replacement of existing spectator terracing that dated from 1911 a necessary expense under safety regulations. Stafford told the tribunal he had promised a tax-free payment to Stuart so the club paid up on the same day." Stadium fire The tribunal ruled in favour of the club, but Stuart appealed against this decision and got Stafford to go with him. At the end of the season we allowed Stuart to break his contract and leave for Everton to further his career because a promise had been made to him. Stafford also promised him a signing-on fee of £50,000, and that went into his contract, but Stafford didn't tell the board that this sum was tax-free. Stuart signed a three-year contract, but Stafford promised him privately that if we didn't get promotion he could leave the club. Speaking about the issue, Jack Tordoff stated that: "Stuart was very close to Stafford Heginbotham, and he and Stuart arranged a deal while they were on a club end-of-season holiday. McCall took the club to the Football League and, after a second hearing, won his case. player Stuart McCall talks of agreeing a tax-free payment with Stafford Heginbotham which was not honoured by Jack Tordoff. In his autobiography, The Real McCall, former Bradford City A.F.C. Looking at his "syrup", we'd always ask when he was going to pay ( toupee) – it would go straight over his head!". We wouldn't see him again until 2.50pm the following week and he'd make it double or quits. Stafford Heginbotham would come in the dressing room before a game and offer us £200 for a few drinks that night if we won. He was known for wearing a wig, former player John Hendrie recalled that: "We all lived in each other's pockets back then. He was credited with saying that 'Football is the Opera of the people". was introduced by Heginbotham in 1966, the 'City Gent' character being modelled on him. Heginbotham became chairman of Bradford City football club, where he was a popular figure, the current official mascot for Bradford City A.F.C. It is a matter of dispute how seriously innuendo about Heginbotham being a serial arsonist and insurance fraudster was meant, but when Bradford businessmen in the 1970s saw smoke in the sky, they joked "that will be one of Stafford's". He did not use the insurance proceeds to re-open the business, despite Bradford City Council's attempts to save the company and a proposed merger with a Welsh-based toy company. Heginbotham claimed today's equivalent of £3 million for the destruction of the premises and a large amount of stock just before Christmas. One was found to have been started by children. ![]() Six years later the Bradford Telegraph & Argus had quoted Heginbotham as saying "I have just been unlucky" after the business suffered two major fires in succession. In 1971, Heginbotham set-up the Bradford-based company Tebro Toys. ![]() The trophy is still running to this date. Heginbotham created the "Stafford Heginbotham Castle Trophy Highest Aggregate Wickets" in the Bradford Cricket League. Heginbotham married Lorna Silverwood and had two sons, James and Simon, who still reside in West Yorkshire. In the mid 1950s he worked as a salesman for a soft furnishings company, and by the age of 24 he was regarded as the firm's best salesman. In the light of the book's revelations the head of a 1985 public inquiry into the disaster maintained there was still no reason to think there had been anything sinister about the stadium fire, although he acknowledged it was cause for suspicion that Heginbotham had been a serial insurance claimant. A 2015 book revealed the extent of Heginbotham's fire insurance claims before the disaster, which had led to him being the subject of local innuendo about arson. Stafford Heginbotham (12 September 1933 – 21 April 1995) was a British businessman and chairman of Bradford City football club at the time of 56 deaths in the Bradford City stadium fire, which occurred immediately after the club won league promotion that mandated a costly upgrading of spectator facilities. British businessman and football club executive
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