Ibrox Disaster 1971....Were you there?

[Howlin' Wilf]

16 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

Tbf Boghead was a glorified Junior ground.

Tbf it got a safety certificate to host Premier League football in 1984-85.

[Arch Stanton]

5 minutes ago, Howlin' Wilf said:

.....as a precursor to demolishing three quarters of the stadium and rebuilding it as a seated arena to be fair.

I've just noticed that is exit 10 which I suspect was the stairs which led from the Broomloan End onto Edmiston Drive.

[AJF]

2 hours ago, bairney said:

I remember rallying round, as many of our supporters did to save our club as they almost died at the hands of George Fulston.

It is somewhat a shame that sevco fans could not be bothered to save their club in their time of need. It must have been a habit from when then they couldn't be bothered to fight and save their fellow fans.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This is quite possibly the single most hate filled and disgusting comment I’ve seen since joining this forum. If this isn’t worthy of a ban I don’t know what is.

[8MileBU]

3 hours ago, bairney said:

I remember rallying round, as many of our supporters did to save our club as they almost died at the hands of George Fulston.

It is somewhat a shame that sevco fans could not be bothered to save their club in their time of need. It must have been a habit from when then they couldn't be bothered to fight and save their fellow fans.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Well aren’t you quite the thick gutter dwelling moron.!

32 minutes ago, bairney said:

I believe two brothers from Camelon near Falkirk were at the scene - the Alexander boys? They should have stayed Home and supported their local team like good people instead of wearing their union jacks with the Roman Bar in Camelon to go to their bigotfest.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Even taking the piss out of those that actually lost their lives? Wonder what inspired “the Alexander boys”? 

You’re a rancid, vile c**t and need binned pronto.

[HibsFan]

3 hours ago, bairney said:

I remember rallying round, as many of our supporters did to save our club as they almost died at the hands of George Fulston.

It is somewhat a shame that sevco fans could not be bothered to save their club in their time of need. It must have been a habit from when then they couldn't be bothered to fight and save their fellow fans.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Jesus H. Christ. Reread this about four times to make sure it said what I thought it said. Fucking baffling that you'd think something like that let alone post it on here.

[bairney]

1 minute ago, Day of the Lords said:

 

As much as we all enjoy the misfortunes of the old firm, this is out of fucking order. 

Enjoy your impending ban you daft c**t. 

No worries - the h un c***s deserve it.

[The_Kincardine]

4 hours ago, Flybhoy said:

That Ibrox was the only major stadium disaster we had in Scotland is really quite staggering when you think back to the conditions of stadiums and approaches to them in that era, Celtic fans  were also in a nearly disastrous crush in a UEFA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest around then, sadly it took more deaths at Bradford and Hillsborough for crowd safety to be properly addressed eventually. 

That Rangers as a club has to take a share of the blame for 1971 is absolutely right - we had a grim warning and ignored it.

That it was part of a bigger problem of ingress/egress/crowd management/stadium design 'back then' is also true.  I think you and I have discussed this before and both agreed that being a part of big crowds at, say, Murrayfield, Ibrox, Celtic Park and Hampden was never nice and, at times, terrifying.

Edited January 1, 2021 by The_Kincardine

[Tutankhamen]

5 hours ago, Arch Stanton said:

I've just noticed that is exit 10 which I suspect was the stairs which led from the Broomloan End onto Edmiston Drive.

Not quite sure how the stairways where numbered. Seems a bit of a gap from stairway 13 at the other end of the ground.

[jagfox]

A tragedy that affected many families. 

[TonyHendrix]

17 hours ago, Flybhoy said:

First ever Celtic game I attended was the 1985 Scottish Cup final against Dundee United, back then the turnstiles behind the goal at the Celtic end of Hampden were at the top of the stairs, on a stairway very similar to the one at Ibrox. 

It was advertised in that mornings papers you could pay at the gate behind the goal so my dad decided to take me and my older brother, I was 8, he was 17. Obviously thousands had the same last minute decision to go to the match and I remember how rammed the stairway leading up to those turnstiles were, a slip or fall that could have caused a similar tragedy, the terracing behind the goal was also dangerously overcrowded and I saw very little of the game being so small, having only been to a couple of Stirling Albion matches up till then I was totally perplexed and frankly, scared by the dangerous overcrowding and general unsafe terracing and stairways.

That Ibrox was the only major stadium disaster we had in Scotland is really quite staggering when you think back to the conditions of stadiums and approaches to them in that era, Celtic fans  were also in a nearly disastrous crush in a UEFA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest around then, sadly it took more deaths at Bradford and Hillsborough for crowd safety to be properly addressed eventually. 

I was there that day,it could easily have happened at the Celtic end,the steep slopes were terrible,likewise at Hampden.

When we played Leeds,there were many fans,myself included,whose feet never touched the ground going downstairs,150,000 or even more,only Nottingham came as close,how nobody was killed that evening I’ll never know.

[Arch Stanton]

11 hours ago, Tutankhamen said:

Not quite sure how the stairways where numbered. Seems a bit of a gap from stairway 13 at the other end of the ground.

I was only at Ibrox twice before the start of the redevelopment. @The_Kincardine may be able to confirm or correct this but IIRC  there were only 2 stairways at each end and one from the Woodville St side (now the Sandy Jardine Stand). So Broomloan 10 and 11, Woodville 12 and Copland Rd 13.

[Ro Sham Bo]

30 minutes ago, TonyHendrix said:

I was there that day,it could easily have happened at the Celtic end,the steep slopes were terrible,likewise at Hampden.

When we played Leeds,there were many fans,myself included,whose feet never touched the ground going downstairs,150,000 or even more,only Nottingham came as close,how nobody was killed that evening I’ll never know.

I've just read up on that Forest match, having never heard of it before. 

Unbelievable that incidents like that were occurring down there and nothing was done until after Hillsborough. 

 

[The_Kincardine]

46 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

I was only at Ibrox twice before the start of the redevelopment. @The_Kincardine may be able to confirm or correct this but IIRC  there were only 2 stairways at each end and one from the Woodville St side (now the Sandy Jardine Stand). So Broomloan 10 and 11, Woodville 12 and Copland Rd 13.

That's right.  I was going to try and explain this last night but couldn't find an aerial pic that illustrates it well.  This was the best I could come up with - but it shows how the oval was built on earth bankings with wide and hellishly steep staircases where you said - one of which you could see at the bottom right of the pic.

 

[Arch Stanton]

2 minutes ago, The_Kincardine said:

That's right.  I was going to try and explain this last night but couldn't find an aerial pic that illustrates it well.  This was the best I could come up with - but it shows how the oval was built on earth bankings with wide and hellishly steep staircases where you said - one of which you could see at the bottom right of the pic.

 

Here's one from a slightly different angle from the BBC article.

[TonyHendrix]

2 hours ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

I've just read up on that Forest match, having never heard of it before. 

Unbelievable that incidents like that were occurring down there and nothing was done until after Hillsborough. 

 

I think that even the police were taken aback by the size of the crowd that night and give due the the ambulance workers who worked overtime attending the injured.

I also saw a couple of young kids around 10 or 11 who were crying near the corner flag,their dads were put on stretchers then taken to hospital.

That aside,Forest were by far the better team in both games and deserved to win the tie overall.

[AJF]

And with the Angels they’ll be singing
Up in heaven there up above
They’ll be singing Follow Follow
To the Rangers that they love

[HibsFan]

On 29/12/2020 at 12:32, HibsFan said:

the stories my Grandad told me about going to Hibs in the late 40s/early 50s made it sound like a frightening experience. The 2nd Jan 1950 Edinburgh derby against Hearts (a record crowd of 65,000+) was delayed for a short while due to crushes, I’m sure? Can’t find any articles about it at the moment.

Just an update on this:

https://www.hiberniancommunityfoundation.org.uk/the-story-of-easter-roads-record-attendance

"At one stage the queues were said to have stretched four or five deep along both sides of Albion Road, up Easter Road almost as far as the junction with London Road, and down as far as Dalmeny Street with similar queues at the St Clair Street and Hawkhill entrances. Such was the chaos that mounted police had to be sent from the High Street in an attempt to maintain order and they struggled to control the masses both outside the ground and around the perimeter of the pitch, eventually managing only with great difficulty to get the situation under control. The huge number of supporters attempting to gain a tentative foothold on the mass of loose earth towering behind the main terracing that was described in one newspaper as ‘table mountain,’ was an accident waiting to happen, and it was only by good fortune that no serious injuries had resulted from the numerous ‘human landslides’. The volunteer ambulance men had also found themselves overworked treating the mostly minor injuries on the pitch before the game, the more serious transported to the makeshift casualty station that had been set up inside the adjacent Albion Road School. Five people were taken to hospital. It was later reported that two people had died due to the effects of the crushing, one at the match itself, the other shortly after arriving home after the game."

A remarkably blasé account of two fans losing their lives, but yes that was the game I was thinking of and it sounded like a disaster waiting to happen from that article.

[TonyHendrix]

One ground I always thought was dangerous was the old Hampden Park.

Many a time my feet couldn't even touch the ground,more so at the Leeds United game,it was much closer to 150k than the 136k official crowd.

[Glenconner]

On 16/06/2022 at 17:37, TonyHendrix said:

One ground I always thought was dangerous was the old Hampden Park.

Many a time my feet couldn't even touch the ground,more so at the Leeds United game,it was much closer to 150k than the 136k official crowd.

Although those were football record attendances.

The record non football attendance for Hampden was in the 1950s at a Boys Brigade event were it's claimed that 250,000 turned up.

Or one in 25 of the Scottish population on that day.

Obviously the full pitch was used and both vehicle ramp positioned at both ends of the South Stand would have been used as exits by spectators.

Notice that record has appeared a number of times on P&B.

[Danny1000]

I Knew Walter Raeburn  ( Watty) when he stayed in my  Mother and Fathers guest house at 17 Claremont crescent in Edinburgh.  We were all really shocked when we heard he had died at the match.
I would be happy to pass on any memories I have of him

Danny Ryder