CITY fan David Hustler, whose story was featured in the Valley Parade fire documentary “One Day in May”, has died after a short illness.

Paul Firth, an advisor for the TV film, said Hustler was a man “I am proud to call my friend and true hero.”

He was suffering from vascular dementia which left Hustler unable to give his own recollection of how he had rescued fellow fan Matthew Wildman.

Firth said: “The film included only first hand accounts of the events of May 11th.

"It couldn’t tell the story of Dave’s first rescue of Mrs Kathleen Kelly. Imagine if the viewers had known how doubly brave he was!

"While it was possible for Matthew to give his very moving account of how he was rescued, it was not possible for Dave or Mrs Kelly to give an account of her rescue.

“I have one or two Bradford City ‘heroes’, the likes of Bobby Campbell of course. But Dave was a hero in the proper sense of the word.”

Firth wrote at length about Hustler in his book on the disaster “Four minutes to Hell”.

He added: “I couldn’t weave his story into the others and it deserved a chapter to itself. Then it became two chapters.

“His stories from the hospital were of a different type to what he told me about May 11th, but needed telling.

“And eventually, Dave being Dave, I wrote a third chapter about him. That was about how he didn’t tell me he had been awarded the Queen’s Gallantry

“But that was Dave; not just a hero but a modest hero.”