The horror of Stoke City's darkest day as crowd cried 'let us out'

It is 80 years today since the darkest day in Stoke City history – and one of the worst disasters in English football – as 33 spectators were killed during an FA Cup quarter-final against Bolton Wanderers.

The 1945/46 season saw the return of the FA Cup for the first time since 1938/39 due to the Second World War.

The Football League wouldn’t kick back in for another year so huge crowds flocked to two-legged ties, especially when a team is packed with stars like Stanley Matthews and Freddie Steele.

There was more than 50,000 at Bramall Lane for a fourth round second leg as Stoke held off Sheffield United, more than 40,000 at the Victoria Ground for a fifth round first leg against Sheffield Wednesday and more than 60,000 at Hillsborough for the return.

The first leg of the quarter-final, on March 2, saw 50,735 packed into the Vic. That is the second biggest ever recorded at that stadium – and some were trying to leave before kick-off because it was so uncomfortable. Boys and youths were passed to the edge of the pitch.

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Stoke lost 2-0, with Ray Westwood scoring twice, but there was mass excitement about the re-match at Burnden Park on March 9 and whether a brilliant Stoke team would be able to pull themselves back in with a chance.

The official attendance was recorded at 65,419 but it was estimated to be nearer 85,000.

Those huge numbers were squeezed into just three stands because the Burnden Stand had been requisitioned by the Government and was still stocked with food from the Ministry of Supply.

The noise when the teams emerged five minutes before 3pm was said to be incredible but, by that point, a horror was already unfolding in the Railway Embankment End, which was made up of rubble, earth and occasional flagstone steps and mostly used by home supporters.

It had looked full by 2pm and there were reports of men, women and children fainting. By 2.35pm there was worrying swaying backwards and forwards reported in the north west corner.

The gates were closed at 2.40pm but there were still about 15,000 fans outside queuing trying to get in.

Spectators were pressed forwards and wooden crush barriers – which had replaced the steel girders that had been taken to assist the war effort – collapsed under the strain. There were 33 who died, including 21 due to suffocation, and about 500 people injured.

Dutton said: “I was informed that some spectators were dead. In view of that information, I called up the Stoke and Bolton team captains (Neil Franklin and Harry Hubbick) and informed them that the players would leave the field. It was the only means by which the casualties could be dealt with and some order restored.”

Thousands of fans from all around the stadium spilled onto the pitch as the two teams retreated to the changing room. A hospital station was improvised underneath the main stand.

But Mr Howard said: “Out of the 65,000 people on the ground, only a few hundred would know what had happened and the remainder would believe that the game was being stopped simply because some people had invaded the pitch.”

He delayed a chat with the referee “until nearly all the casualties had been removed from the field” and then recommended that the game should re-start “if only on the ground of public safety”.

The teams were told, after a break of 26 minutes, that the police wanted them back out and police horses came out to try to clear the pitch. As one area receded, however, another part of the crowd seemed to be pushed forward.

The players – who had been hardened or numbed by the war – had to walk past supporters lying on the running track who they could only guess may have been dead but they had not been told about the scale of the tragedy.

For what it’s worth, the game finished 0-0.

Stoke manager Bob McGrory said: “News of the tragedy was a tremendous shock. The Stoke party knew nothing of it until after the match as, when the teams left the field, all the main stand gangways became blocked by an inrush of people from other parts of the ground and it was impossible to get below to our dressing room.

“I remained in the stand and saw casualties being carried away but no one realised that many of the victims were dead. We thought they were ordinary fainting cases caused by the stampede on the pitch.

“When the Stoke players were returning to the field they saw two or three casualties who may have been dead but the team played on, as did Bolton, quite unaware of the real nature of the disaster.”

Burslem-based Superintendent W Hobson had been there as a spectator and hadn’t realised what had happened until he got home.

He said: “With three friends I went to Bolton by car and, like everyone else, witness the amazing crowd scenes and the removal of what we thought were fainting cases from the railway embankment end of the ground.

“I remarked to my companions, as some of the casualty cases passed in front of our stand, that some of them appeared very far gone, even for faint, but we had no idea that the victims were dead.

“When we left for the return journey soon after the game we never heard a word of the tragedy from the hundreds of people among whom we mingled. My first intimation of it was on my arrival at Burslem when I was informed of the anxious inquiries at the police station for news of the casualty list. Then I read in The Sentinel of the magnitude of the disaster and could hardly believe it.”

Bolton went on to lose their semi-final 2-0 to Charlton at Villa Park, where the capacity was reduced by 10,000.

Moelwyn Hughes KC was appointed to oversee a Government inquiry. The result of this was for crowd safety limits to be more scientifically and accurately calculated and stadium licences were introduced and overseen by local authorities.

The football world came together to raise more than £50,000 for the Bolton Disaster Fund over the next few months, including an England-Scotland match at Maine Road. Payments were made to widows and dependents of those killed.

It remained the greatest disaster in British football until 1971, when 66 people were killed in a crush at Ibrox. Then, in 1989, 97 Liverpool supporters were killed in a crush at Hillsborough during an FA Cup semi-final.

Bolton held a minute’s silence before a game against Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday. Denis Smith and John Ruggiero went to the match to represent Stoke.

Bolton left Burnden Park in 1997 and moved into what is now known as the Toughsheet Community Stadium. There is a plaque outside the ground in remembrance of the 33 who lost their lives.

The dead included Fred Campbell, aged 33, of Bolton and his sister Emily Hoskinson, aged 40.

Thomas Roby, aged 55, of Billinge, and his son Richard, aged 37.

Fred Battersby, of Everton, and his brother James, of Atherton.

Harry Birtwistle, aged 14, of Blackburn

Thomas Smith, of Rochdale

Joseph Platt, aged 50, of Bolton

Morgan Mooney, aged 25, of Bolton

Harry Bimson, aged 65, of Leigh

Harry McAndrew, of Wigan

Frank Jubb, of Rochdale

Wilfred Allison, of Leigh

William Braidwood, aged 40, of Heywood

John Flinders, aged 35, of Littleborough

John Blackshaw, of Rochdale

Walter Wilmott, of Bolton

William McKenzie, of Bury

William Evans, of Leigh

Winston Finch, of Hazel Grove

David Pearson, of Rochdale

John Thomas Lucas, of Leigh

Harry Needham, of Bolton

Robert Bentham, of Atherton

Granville Roberts, of Ashton-in-Makerfield

Fred Price, aged 67, of Astley Bridge

Sidney Potter, aged 35, of Tyldesley

James Wilson, of Higher Openshaw

Wilfred Adison, of Moss Side

Albert Hanrahan, of Eccles

John Livesey, aged 37, of Bamber Bridge

William Hughes, aged 56, of Wigan

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