2010 was the year of two highly-successful campaigns which the T&A backed. HANNAH BAKER reflects on the Burns Unit Appeal May 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the Valley Parade fire disaster, and also saw the culmination of a ten-month appeal to raise £100,000 for the pioneering Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit at Bradford University.

As in 1995, when a similar campaign smashed its target by more than £50,000, this appeal raised more than £140,000, enabling Professor David Sharpe, who set up the unit in the aftermath of the tragedy, to employ two new researchers for a further two years to continue its groundbreaking work involving burns treatments.

Bradford-based motor dealership JCT600 raised more than £10,000 when 15 directors climbed Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain.

John Tordoff, the company’s chief executive, was at the ground on the day of the fire, which killed 56 people and injured more than 190.

The appeal received a further boost from West Yorkshire Fire Service, which raised almost £30,000 by collecting funds at Bradford City’s home games, Bradford Bulls matches and galas.

West Yorkshire Co-op raised a total of £25,000 and the company also supplied a team of footballers from Lancashire to play against former City stars including Stuart McCall, John Hendrie, Dean Windass and Peter Beagrie at a fundraising match at Valley Parade.

A team of entrepreneurial pupils from St Bede’s Catholic Grammar School sold their own football merchandise at the match to raise money.

Pupils at Wellington Primary, in Dudley Hill Road raised £400 by paying to wear football shirts to school, while Bradford teenager Liam Midwood held an assembly about the fire at his school for the blind in Worcester before running a cake stall in aid of the appeal.

And keen to contribute to the unit’s future, its incumbent research fellows Ben Miranda and Nanda Kandamany edited two academic textbooks and pledged to give 25 per cent of the proceeds to the centre.