Stafford Heginbotham (original) (raw)

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. 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. 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.