| Match Pictures | Matches: 1970 – 1971 |
The Ibrox Disaster
Trivia
- This was an all ticket match with the police setting the Ground limit at 80,000.
- A stairway gave way and collapsed, leading to a massive pile-up of spectators and a crush, which resulted in the death of 66 people.
- It was a stadium disaster (not hooliganism) and led to the beginning of the revamp of Ibrox.
- There was another big stadium disaster at Ibrox previously in 1902 and another in 1961 (against Celtic again) when 2 people died and sixty were injured. Hopefully after this tragedy in 1971 this is the last that will ever be seen in Scotland.
- Celtic manager Jock Stein helped tend to the injured and dying and the other Celtic backroom staff assisted the emergency services. Willie Waddell said he would never forget the sight of the devastated Bob Rooney (Celtic physio) desperately trying to resuscitate dead fans by giving them the kiss of life.
- Jock Stein was heard to verbally rebuke journalists afterwards, outside Ibrox, who asked insensitive questions about the result of the game.
- There were several religious services held for the repose of the dead. In St Andrews’ Cathedral Glasgow, on 5 January 1971, His Grace Archbishop James Scanlon held a mass for the memory of the deceased. The first lesson was given by Celtic’s Jim Craig and the second by journalist Bob Crampsey. The offertory procession was led by Willie Dunn (Clyde chairman), Sean Fallon (Celtic assistant manager) and Davie McParland (Partick Thistle manager).
- Celtic’s entire first team, directors and general staff all attended the mass with representatives of the Celtic supporters association and the Rangers supporters association. Rangers were represented by manager Willie Waddell, assistant manager Willie Thornton, captain John Greig and players Sandy Jardine, Colin Stein, Ronnie McKinnon, Alfie Conn, Willie Henderson, Alex MacDonald, Peter McCloy and Alex Miller. Lord Provost, Sir Donald Liddle, headed the City’s deputation.
Review
As per any Celtic v Rangers game, this was a keenly awaited and hotly contested match with the added edge that it was the traditional turn of the New Year game. Celtic were league champions and Rangers were desperate to win to pin Celtic back to reassert themselves in the quest for the league title. Celtic in the past year had been in a European Cup final and this was the club’s first meeting at Ibrox since that game, and many Rangers fans thought that this would be a great way to scalp Celtic and get an upper hand.
The match proceeded as competitive as this contest always is, but remained goalless until wee Jinky Johnstone nipped through to score a goal in the 89th minute to send the Celtic fans into raptures. Late victories like this are sweet for any fan. Inevitably, the Rangers fans started to swarm out the stadium (nothing changes). However then in the last seconds of stoppage time, Colin Stein scored an equaliser for Rangers!
It was said at first that some of the departing Rangers turned and tried to ran back in en mass on hearing of the goal, but then the barriers on the stairway adjacent to passageway 13 gave way causing a massive chain-reaction pile-up of spectators. The tragedy resulted in the loss of 66 lives as people were crushed to death, many of whom were children – five of them schoolmates from the town of Markinch, in Fife; there was also another 200 other fans injured in the melee.
Bodies were said to be stacked as deep as six feet in the area, most of the deaths were caused by compressive asphyxia. Initially it was speculated that fans leaving the ground turned back when they heard roars from the crowd. The speculation was that those who turned back collided with fans leaving the ground when the match ended. The official inquiry into the disaster indicated that there was no truth in this hypothesis. This is called the “myth of the Stein goal“.
For the players, they were oblivious to the tragedy unfolding, with the Celtic players only aware when listening to radio reports on the bus back to Celtic Park. The club newspaper printed the headline “Black Saturday”, and advertised collection notices set up to help the fans out.
In tribute and in memoriam, a Celtic/Rangers Select XI v Scotland Select XI tribute game was played to raise funds.
Rangers returned to playing football again only one and a half weeks later.
No action was taken against the Ibrox board despite the stadium failings, but in light of events this led to the renovation of their whole ground.
The Glasgow Herald football reporter Andrew Young described the aftermath of Scotland’s worst ever football disaster:
“Eventually at the top of the terrace the true horror became apparent. Half a dozen lifeless forms were lying on the ground. Rescuers were tripping over the dead and injured as they struggled back with more victims.
“A wedge of emptiness had been created part of the way down the long steep flight of steps leading to the Copeland Road exit. In it were the twisted remains of the heavy steel division barriers. They had been mangled out of shape and pressed to the ground by the weight of the bodies.
“Lying all over the steps were scores of shoes that had been ripped off in the crush. Beyond, the steps were still dense with groaning people.
“There was almost complete shocked silence at this stage. Occasionally we would hear the sounds of coins falling from the victims pockets as they were lifted away.”
The enquiry that followed the disaster proved inconclusive, although it was suggested that a supporter tripping on his way out could have triggered the horrific chain of events. All the spectators were said to be going in the same direction at the time of the collapse. Unlike most public venues, Scottish football stadiums did not need to be licensed with safety certificates, even though as many as 100,000 supporters had to be catered for. The inquiry and the Wheatley Report of 1972 led to the Safety of Sports Ground Act of 1975 which introduced safety certificates for the first time.
Opinion
There is no need for anybody to start patronising anyone with the clichés about the obvious over-stated importance of football above life, as we all know that football is not the be-all and end-all, especially in the light of tragedies like this one. We love the opportunity the sport allows us to escape from the dreariness of the monotony of everyday life, and supporting your club is one way of doing this.
However, the events on this day shook everyone to the core. Amongst all the bitter rivalry, we are all just human and we all have friends who are friends regardless of what club they do and don’t support (nor should it be an issue). In the midst of a big social disaster, it shouldn’t matter what background you are from.
Seeing the pictures of Jock Stein tending and assisting those who were injured or had died is a poignant scene. His quote in the Celtic View (reprinted below) says it all for us. It puts into perspective the derisible element in the Rangers’ camps who have spent time and effort on campaigns to denigrate his good name. Jock Stein did the right thing because what he knew was right, because of the values he had and what he stood for. He didn’t need to be lectured about what was right or what was wrong.
“This terrible tragedy must help to curb the bigotry and bitterness of Old Firm matches. When human life is at stake this kind of hatred seems sordid and little. Fans of both sides will never forget this disaster.”
(Jock Stein from the Celtic View on the Ibrox Disaster of 1971)
Celtic fans have never abused the memory of the death of the Rangers fans from this tragedy, and nor should it ever be done so by any rival support. It could easily have happened at the other end of the ground.
To the families of all those affected, our sincere condolences. You’ll never walk alone. RIP
Teams
Rangers
Neef, Jardine, Mathieson, Greig, McKinnon, Jackson, Henderson (MacDonald), Conn, D Johnstone, Smith, Stein
Scorer: Stein (90)
Celtic:
Williams, Craig, Gemmell, Brogan, Connelly, Hay, Johnstone, Hood, Wallace, Callaghan, Lennox. Substitute: Macari
Scorer: Johnstone (89)
Referee: W Anderson (East Kilbride)
Attendance: 80,000
Articles
- Match Reports (see below)
Pictures
Links
Articles
Evening Times 2nd January 1966
Evening Times 4th January 1971
Evening Times 5th January 1971
Evening Times 7th January 1971
Ibrox disaster: Tragic cost for sport that had turned a blind eye to dangers
So much sadness and so many images that would tear your heart out. You could sit there until the end of time and watch Gisela Easton’s memories of her son, Peter, aged 13 when he perished on the darkest night, and be as profoundly moved by her words at the 1000th viewing as you were at the first.
Gisela’s story, seen again in the decade-old film of the Ibrox disaster a few nights back, is a haunting but beautiful thing. Gently, she spoke of her son and her husband, Harry: “Of all the bodies he had to identify, Peter was the last,” she said. ”
The day of Ibrox. It’s been a week when we’ve gone back in time to the ultimate nightmare, a week when the testimony from the bereaved has been epic in its sadness. “My father was walking behind me with his hand on my shoulder because he was always very protective of me,” said Matt Reid, in his late teens on 2 January, 1971. “The closer we got to the stairway, the crushing became more severe. Then we were swept off our feet and were carried along and around the corner to the top of the stair next to the side fence. A sudden surge took us down part of the stair. It was like being catapulted out of a door. I grabbed on to a handrail and held on for dear life. Then I heard this awful grinding noise like metal scaffolding going down and that was the handrails giving way. There was another surge and dad was swept away. As he went he cried, ‘Christ, my boy’. His last thought was for me. I never saw him again but I have heard him call out many times over the years.”
Memories from families and memories from players, too. They’ve spoken at length, from Rangers and from Celtic. John Greig and Sandy Jardine; Billy McNeill and, on Wednesday evening, Jim Craig. The old Celtic full-back talked in the most poignant way of an era that has thankfully past, a time when fans were treated like animals, when public safety was of no concern when compared to the football’s great ego trip of who can shoe-horn more supporters into their ground on any given day.
“It was a real watershed moment in Scottish football,” he said. “They used to pack them in and didn’t worry too much about safety. I’m old enough to remember 154,000 at Hampden and it was really quite disgraceful to pack so many in.
We used to play in some awful grounds where the public was just beside you and you could have a conversation with them when you were taking a throw-in.
“Places like Brockville and Broomfield were horrendous for overcrowding. Ibrox was large and spaced-out, though, and was not a place you would have thought would have lent itself to a problem.
“I think everyone realised that something had to be done. There would have been 70,000 or 80,000 packed into Ibrox that day. There were maybe 70,000 at Parkhead for our games against Rangers. It wasn’t a comfortable situation to be in. You couldn’t get to the toilets for a start. If you were stuck in the middle of this huge crowd there wasn’t any point in trying to get to the toilet because you wouldn’t get back again. All that changed, quite rightly, for the better. And Willie Waddell played his part, definitely. Every club was happy to back Rangers because every club had, in their history, moments when some dodgy things happened, even if they didn’t reach quite that scale. There were moments of danger that weren’t reported.
“I was at a couple of Scotland-England games in the late 1950s to early 1960s and as the crowds came flooding in they just pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. Eventually you were just crammed in, couldn’t go anywhere at all. It was a dreadful situation but it was just accepted at that time. The feeling was that it had always been this way so why bother trying to do anything about it? The tragedy was an occasion when people realised that, yes, things could be done. Let’s make a difference, let’s make it easier and safer for people to get in and out of grounds. They did that.”
He says it’s remarkable to think back to the dominant emotion in the Celtic dressing-room in the immediate aftermath of the final whistle. Frustration and anger filled the place. Jimmy Johnstone had given them a late lead and it was wiped-out later still by Colin Stein. As they quietly seethed in their seats at a lost opportunity they hadn’t a notion about what was going on outside.
They got changed quickly and got themselves on the bus. Typical of the time, the players were all on-board first and were ready for the road, but were kept waiting by the club directors. The wheels could not turn until the suits had taken their seats. Most embarrassingly for Craig, his father was one of them.
“Then Jock appeared and stood at the front step of the bus and said ‘There’s been an incident inside and we think someone has died’. He said to the driver to take the players back to Celtic Park and then closed the door and went. We had the radio on and they kept mentioning the disaster that had happened and the numbers began to increase. During the evening the numbers of dead and injured got more and more.
“Jock was very badly affected. He stayed behind and went to help with the bodies being brought underneath the main stand. I think it was a traumatic time for him.
Even for those who, like ourselves, played in the game but were taken away from it, losing 66 people at a football match is bound to play a seminal part in your life. Jock would have been affected just like anyone else.
“Later, I spoke to Fitzy, our doctor, who said they had been asphyxiated. It’s not a very pleasant thing to see. I’ve seen a couple in my lifetime. The life is being crushed out of you, it must be a horrendous way to go. I think anyone who would have seen that would have been very badly affected.”
Craig, like all the players from both sides of the great divide, paid visits to stricken families. He went to see two sets of parents who lived close to him in Bearsden. “Their kids were 18 and 19. One of them didn’t know their son was at the game. He went in to town to meet friends, decided to go to the Old Firm game and never came home.
“I didn’t know the parents beforehand. You feel totally inadequate, but I just felt it was the right thing to do. You can imagine how it must feel, your young son goes off into town and doesn’t come home, you’re phoning around relatives and friends asking if they’ve seen him. And all this time the poor man is lying over at Ibrox.
“You do these things even though you know it’s impossible to find the right words. You’ve got the emotions but you can’t really express them. The service in Glasgow Cathedral was very moving. I was asked to read one of the lessons. I just remember that the whole city seemed to pull together for the occasion. It was a moment when the whole of Glasgow realised that football was a fairly minor matter when things like that happen.”
Different days now, mercifully. Proper stadiums and decent facilities. Supporters treated with a bit of respect instead of being herded in like cattle. The danger around the fixture has changed, he says.
“I think it’s less. At one time it was one set of Scottish lads against another set of Scottish lads. But as more and more non-Scots have played in it I think that has helped it become less tense. In the 1980s I’m sure it was a tough time. Certainly in the 1960s and 1970s it was hard going. I think the players today, without the shackles of history – that they come to the club not knowing about it – makes it easier for them to play in it.
“There will be a great atmosphere on Sunday and there will be a real dislike on both sides, because that’s what football is all about. You don’t want the opposition to win, so there will be a real tension in the air. But thank God it’s now being played in a stadium which can accommodate the crowd safely.”
The minute’s silence, you can only pray, will be respectfully observed. Forty years on, the 66 who lost their lives will be in the thoughts of us all.
- Last Updated: 31 December 2010 12:34 AM
- Source: The Scotsman
- Location: Edinburgh
Players were unaware disaster was unfolding
The Herald
31 Dec 2010
WHEN the Celtic players came off the pitch at the end of the Ibrox disaster game their heads were full of football.
They got themselves worked up about nothing.
They sat in the away dressing room seething. Jimmy Johnstone’s opening goal with a minute left should have been their winner. Instead, they tossed it away by conceding an equaliser to Colin Stein.
They were disgusted with themselves. Within 10 minutes they were on their bus at the stadium’s front door, impatient to leave. As time ticked by, and they were still parked there, some began to mutter and complain. What was the hold-up? Their directors got the blame for the delay: no doubt they were in there having one more gin before getting on the bus.
Everything changed when the most familiar face of all appeared at the door of the bus. Jock Stein, their manager, broke the news that “we think someone has died”. For the Celtic boys the disaster grew from that. Everything they had been grumbling about was forgotten. Stein said he would stay behind to help. If any of his players wanted to do the same they never got the chance: Stein told them they were to be driven straight to Parkhead. Only there, as they dispersed for their homes and listened to car radios, did a picture emerge of what they had left behind at Ibrox.
Stein’s response to the tragedy was exemplary. Along with a contingent of his Celtic backroom team and medical staff he tended the injured, helped carry stretchers, and made himself available to help in any way the emergency services wanted. He was at the centre of the unfolding disaster and then, days later, showed that he immediately grasped the scale and significance of it. In the very next edition of The Celtic View he said: “This terrible tragedy must help to curb the bigotry and bitterness of Old Firm matches. When human life is at stake this kind of hatred seems sordid and little. Fans of both sides will never forget this disaster.”
The Celtic players that day all had the same experience: they were inside the stadium as the deaths happened outside, and then left from the opposite side of the ground. Being physically removed from it did little to lessen their distress or sense of shock.
“I can’t recall how the game went but I remember the dressing room afterwards,” said Jim Craig, their right-back and Lisbon Lion. “If you score a minute from the end, you get that great feeling of euphoria that you have put one over your major opposition. Because they then equalised before the final whistle, the dressing room was a quiet place. We were quietly seething that we had let the opportunity go. At that time, although the tragedy would have been happening, it never reached the dressing room at all.
“We got changed, got out and got on the bus. We would have been out 10 minutes after the game, not half an hour. We were disgusted we hadn’t won the game having scored so late and let them back into it. On the bus, you were always waiting for directors, which didn’t please the players. Quite embarrassingly for me, because my father was a director, there was a lot of complaints that we were sitting waiting for the directors.
“Jock appeared and stood at the front step of the bus and said ‘ there has been an incident inside and we think someone has died’. He said to the driver ‘take the players back to Celtic Park’. We had the radio on and they kept mentioning the disaster that had happened and the numbers [of dead] began to increase. During the evening the numbers of dead and injured got more and more. It was a dreadful feeling to be involved in something like that.”
Days later, Craig visited the homes of two of the victims. Both were teenagers. He did not know the families but they lived nearby. “I visited two sets of parents who lived close to me in Bearsden. You feel totally inadequate going along but I just felt it was the right thing to do. One of the sets of parents hadn’t even known their son was at the game. You can imagine how it must feel, your son goes off into town and doesn’t come home, you’re phoning around relatives and friends asking if they’ve seen him. And all this time the poor man is lying over at Ibrox. It must have been terrible for them.
“There was a very nice service in Glasgow Cathedral and both sets of players attended. Both clubs were represented there, as well. The service was very moving. I was asked to read one of the lessons. I just remember that the whole city seemed to pull together for the occasion. It was a moment when the whole of Glasgow realised that football was a fairly minor matter.”
Craig thinks that spirit will be evident again at Ibrox on Sunday, with Celtic supporters impeccably observing a minute’s silence for those who lost their lives.
“I’m confident. Celtic fans have been through a number of these and have rarely let us down. I don’t think there will be any problem with that, at all.”
Celtic remembers the victims of the 1971 Ibrox Stadium Disaster
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2020/december/Celtic-remembers-the-victims-of-the-1971-Ibrox-Stadium-Disaster/
On January 2nd, 1971, Rangers and Celtic came together at Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow, to play in one of the world’s great football derbies, with 80,000 supporters attending. However, the football result that day was immaterial. This was because 66 Rangers fans were killed and around 200 injured in an accident on Stairway 13 at the Copeland Road side of the ground.
In the immediate aftermath, many in Scotland shed tears and, in a then more Christian society, numerous religious services were held. The Ibrox Disaster of 1971 is one of the worst in British football history. Sitting between Hillsborough (1989) and Bradford (1985), it is the ninth most devastating stadium catastrophe in world football.
A prevalent view of the time is that after Jimmy Johnstone scored what looked like a late winner for Celtic, and with thousands of disappointed Rangers fans beginning to depart, Rangers’ Colin Stein scored an injury-time equaliser. Fans amongst those already departing via the steep slopes at the Copeland Road side rushed back upwards to join their jubilant fellow supporters inside, only to be met by others moving downwards towards them. The monstrous collision and heaving of bodies led to massive crushing and asphyxiation. This resulted in the huge number of fatalities.
Nevertheless, this rather simple account of the tragedy was later discounted, evidence demonstrating the accident occurred several minutes after the final whistle and not immediately following Stein scoring. The sheer weight of numbers involved meant it was physically impossible for anyone to have turned around and go against the solid wall of spectators coming down the stairs.
It is almost certain that someone, maybe more than one, unsurprisingly stumbled going down the stairway, causing others to fall, with fans rapidly caving in on each other. With most departing supporters on the stairway not being able to see what was going on around them, a numbing crush rapidly developed and intensified. Critically, this resulted in the collapse of several steel barriers that ran up the centre of the stairway. Later eye-witness accounts testified to hearing the barriers creak and bend under the human weight and pressure. There was no escape for many caught up in the crush and 66 people died horrific deaths.
With the unfolding tragedy being largely out of sight and evolving over the course of several minutes, most fans left by other exits and headed into the cold winter evening. The players disappeared up the tunnel with a mixture of delight and disappointment at the score. Few people knew what was unfolding on Stairway 13. Delighted their team had equalised, many Rangers fans departed through other gates unaware their fellow supporters were dying. Likewise, some of the players didn’t know what had happened either.
As match stewards, policemen and soon to arrive medical assistance began to descend on the scene, they discovered many fans already dead. Others injured and dying began receiving treatment, some life-saving. From the piles of bodies heaped on top of one another, many were subsequently carried from the stairway back towards the pitch and dressing rooms. Gradually, the dead were harrowingly laid out in a line on the playing field, their bodies covered with jackets and coats.
Photographs show Rangers manager, Willie Waddell, and Celtic counterpart, Jock Stein, helping the emergency services treat the injured as the dressing rooms were turned into makeshift casualty wards… and morgues.
Fathers, brothers, sons, cousins, nephews, son-in-laws, grandfathers, grandchildren were lost forever that day. There was one female amongst the dead too, 18-year old Margaret Ferguson. The loss included 31 teenagers, five of whom were from the same village in Fife. Nine-year-old Nigel Pickup from Liverpool also died.
When the magnitude of the disaster unfolded, the country went into a state of shock. Messages of sympathy came from all over the world, along with promises of financial assistance for the victims’ families. US president Richard Nixon sent condolences as did political leaders in New Zealand, Germany and elsewhere. Pope Paul VI also expressed his sympathies for the casualties, one of many religious leaders to lend a voice to the tributes.
The emotional distress continued as over the following days Rangers players attended a succession of funerals for the victims. On the Saturday after the game, a memorial service attended by more than 3,000 mourners and watched by millions on television took place at Glasgow’s Church of Scotland Cathedral.
At St Andrew’s Catholic Cathedral in Glasgow, Archbishop James Scanlon celebrated Mass for the deceased. This was attended by the Celtic first team, directors and representatives of the Celtic Supporters’ Association. Joining also, were Rangers manager Willie Waddell, captain John Greig, numerous players and representatives from the Rangers Supporters’ Association. Rangers players, officials and fans were traumatised.
In its wake, Glasgow’s Lord Provost Sir Donald Liddle, who had been at the match, set up a fund to raise money for those who suffered financially.
Rangers and Celtic both contributed large sums, while there were donations from other clubs around the world. Afterwards too, Rangers and Celtic came together to play a game to raise funds for the victims’ families, when a combined team took on a Scotland XI at Hampden watched by 81,405 fans.
As the 1970s proceeded, and in response to the enquiries and various other critical evaluations, Ibrox Stadium was renovated, the development inspired by that of Borussia Dortmund’s 1974 World Cup Westfalenstadion in Germany. In the 1980s, the new all-seater Ibrox was one of the best in Britain.
Lord Wheatley’s review of safety at all British football grounds resulted in the 1975 Safety of Sports Grounds Act which enshrined his recommendations in law. If a club did not meet standards, they would not be granted a stadium safety certificate. The Ibrox Disaster demonstrated in the most tragic way imaginable that football had a responsibility for the well-being and safety of supporters.
However, despite the transformation of Ibrox, it took the Bradford Stadium fire of 1985 and the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 to finally convince the rest of British football that the Victorian conditions endured by supporters, especially the mass standing terraces, were no longer acceptable.
The victims of the Disaster received apposite recognition by the club when, on the 30th anniversary, a plaque displaying the names of each person killed in 1971 was unveiled at Ibrox. So also, plaques were raised to remember those killed in two other Ibrox disasters– one at a Scotland game in 1902 when a newly-built stand collapsed and killed 25, and another at a Rangers game in 1961, when two fans were crushed on Stairway 13.
The last thing people expect to see when a loved one departs for a football match is that they never return. The pain and suffering of those that died, those who survived, and the many family and friends connected to all concerned, was, and for many still is, profound.
On January 2nd, 2021, all connected to Rangers, Celtic, and Scottish football and society, should pause to recall this terrible tragedy of 50 years ago, and to remember its victims with the dignity they deserve.
