How football saved the lives of dozens of Banbari factory workers

According to many lovers of the beautiful game, football saves life. At any time it is not more accurate than a cold winter night 44 years ago.

On 18 November 1981, there was a disaster at the then General Foods (GF) factory in Banbari, Oxfordshire, when Corn Starch used its famous custard powder.

But the site, which is Due to closure after more than 60 yearsThat night was much more calm than normal when some employees left the England make -maker against Hungary or to break the World Cup qualifier.

The incident severely injured nine employees, with many people confidence that it was not for the significant tie in the Wambley.

On the evening of that cold November, England required a draw or better to qualify for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, which would be their first for 12 years.

Accepting the end of their innings, some factory people removed their gaze from the long chimney of the plant and towards the prestigious twin towers of the national stadium.

Rosemary Barrett was on the shift on Wednesday evening and told the BBC: “There was a big football match on the radio, so we allowed all the leads to go up and hear it in the changing room.”

The match began well, Paul Meriner along with the Ipswich Town Center won Kevin Keagan’s England 1-0, after 16 minutes a traver broking shot 1–0 victory behind the Hungarian Net.

Broadly after one and a half hours, as a crowd of 92,000 fans in Wambley was preparing to celebrate an important England victory, a queue formed in GF’s clock-in machines because people were ready to complete their innings.

It was just before 22:00 GMT “When it suddenly started, the boom and bang”, Smt. Bairat said.

“We were just looking there, waiting for the clock, and suddenly came around a governor,” he continued.

“The swearing -in was forbidden from there, but he looked in our cabin, where we were all and said ‘Now get out of here’. We did not know which path to run.”

A government report at that time stated that the corn powder had survived a large Silo and made “dense fog of suspended powder in the surrounding area”.

The moment after being seen by an employee, “Many witnesses saw a flash near the top of the bin and a wall of flame spreading down and down from the bin top”, the report states.

“The details were in front of a flame behind the wind of a storm force, which shone through the area,” it said.

Mrs. Barrett’s husband Brian, who also worked on the site, was shifted to the time of the explosion, said that people near the blast described it as “fireball” which “closed like dynamite”.

According to the government report, the blast left nine workers with severe irritation and “the building’s fabric caused adequate damage”.

Mrs. Barrett said: “There should have been a lot of casualties, thank you.

“If there was no football and they did not all push into the charging room [to listen to it] Then who knows what can happen. ,

England win that night “There was no vintage performance”According to The Guardian, but it certainly achieved the most.

In a 90 -minute football, the team managed by Sir Bobby Robson managed to qualify for the next year’s World Cup, while inadvertently saved the life of a group of factory workers.

Not a bad night in the office.