50 years 1971/2021 Our clubs saddest day

[LegendofCoop 10,361]

Eejay, very good idea mate. As hard as it is to read, we must keep those fellow bears in our minds and hearts, and ensure future generations don't forget.

I was only a few months old when this happened, and I don't actually know how/when I first learned of what happened on that tragic day. I just have vague recollections of kids at school mentioning the disaster, but I didn't really take it all in. I would probably be in my teens before I really learned the scale & magnitude of the disaster. From speaking to folk at games and on supporters busses when I started going to games....to learning the history behind the building of the 'new' Ibrox, that's how I recall finding out about it.

Time doesn't make it any less horrific to imagine though. I've been in a similar situation to that crushing....but not of the same magnitude, or outcome. Out of respect for folk who were there, I won't comment on how bad it felt. Suffice to say, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. 

Reading the first hand accounts of those who were there is chilling. However hard it is to read, every young bear should take the time to learn of this, and the first disaster in 1902, and to appreciate the reasons behind why we have the marvelous stadium that we have to day. Always think of it as a shrine to the 66 souls that never came home that day, and the love that we still have for them. One more reason why we call ourselves 'The people'! 

To absent friends.

[Blue Avenger 20,911]

@eejay the dj Good to see this thread back. A great piece. Don't know wtf happened to it. 

So many sad memories in such tragedy of fellow bears who didn't make it back home that fateful day.

May they never be forgotten as they rest in peace in blue heaven, forever young.

 

 

[Blue Nosed Babe 12,041]

This is as important a part of our history as the good times and must never be forgotten. 

[JackAlex93 2,638]

Very chilling reading all these recollections and memories of that day. I'm in my late 20's so have only ever heard stories and saw photographs of the tragedy. Those poor fans who went to the football and never came home will always be remembered by the Rangers family. God bless them and all the families affected by the Ibrox disaster. RIP. 

[Bergerloyal 42]

That day still haunts me.

I usually went up on the Denny RSC bus but that day my mate and I drove through. We went in Stairway 13 as usual but for some unknown reason left by the side of the Main Stand. Can't explain why. We picked up our girlfriends (now wives) from shopping in town. We stopped in Moodiesburn (maybe Mollinsburn) for fish suppers as we were all going out that night. In the chip shop a young lad came in off a supporters bus and said 4 people had been killed. When we got home it was 16. We never went out.

Another story ......... a couple of weeks before Xmas we had our monthly meeting of the Supporters Club. We had a guy in the Club who was a bit of a nuisance - a big lad with huge hands called appropriately "Barabbas"- so it was proposed that he be barred from the Bus and probably the Club. A couple of us said that he was working the back shift that night so wasn't there to defend himself. We suggested to hold off until he could come in person. Motion carried.

As I said above, I wasn't on the bus for the game. But the next morning the tv cameras were going round the hospitals, to the beds, and asking the folks what happened to them. One young lad from my street in Dunipace told his story. He told how he was pulled down with bodies on top of him. He couldn't breathe. Then he felt arms and hands wrap around his face, and "cocooned" him to give him air. He was in tears. He was saved by that action. Then he finished and said - "Big Barabbas saved me".

Barabbas died that day on Stairway 13.

There never was another motion to expel him.

There but for the Grace of God.

 

[eejay the dj 30,240]

14 hours ago, Bergerloyal said:

That day still haunts me.

I usually went up on the Denny RSC bus but that day my mate and I drove through. We went in Stairway 13 as usual but for some unknown reason left by the side of the Main Stand. Can't explain why. We picked up our girlfriends (now wives) from shopping in town. We stopped in Moodiesburn (maybe Mollinsburn) for fish suppers as we were all going out that night. In the chip shop a young lad came in off a supporters bus and said 4 people had been killed. When we got home it was 16. We never went out.

Another story ......... a couple of weeks before Xmas we had our monthly meeting of the Supporters Club. We had a guy in the Club who was a bit of a nuisance - a big lad with huge hands called appropriately "Barabbas"- so it was proposed that he be barred from the Bus and probably the Club. A couple of us said that he was working the back shift that night so wasn't there to defend himself. We suggested to hold off until he could come in person. Motion carried.

As I said above, I wasn't on the bus for the game. But the next morning the tv cameras were going round the hospitals, to the beds, and asking the folks what happened to them. One young lad from my street in Dunipace told his story. He told how he was pulled down with bodies on top of him. He couldn't breathe. Then he felt arms and hands wrap around his face, and "cocooned" him to give him air. He was in tears. He was saved by that action. Then he finished and said - "Big Barabbas saved me".

Barabbas died that day on Stairway 13.

There never was another motion to expel him.

There but for the Grace of God.

 

That’s exactly why I started this thread mate .Great account of your memories 👍

[Thornliebanktrueblue 633]

9 yrs old. Not allowed to go cis it was new year game v celtic. Listening on radio as we did. Sitting with mum and the three aunts  dad and his 3 brothers at the game  

Then the news came in. And it got worse and worse.  When they arrived home I’d never see my Mum and my aunties cry as they realised their men were ok.  They still didn’t know.  No phones Fb or twitter. 

They came home. Others didn’t. 

RIP the 66

[Thornliebanktrueblue 633]

What age were we all and where were we that fateful day. I was 9. In grans house in Thornliebank listening to radio. 

[Inigo 23,593]

My dad was on the stairway that day. Was caught in the crush and says that it was like a vice and he could feel the life being squeezed out of him. Said he grabbed a branch of a tree or a bush beside the stairs that helped him pull himself free. Being young, strong and lucky probably helped him.

Usual story after that of going home and finding my gran beside herself with worry.

The terror for the folk in the crush must've been unimaginable. And the pain of the families of the poor victims. 

[real boydie9 3,339]

8 hours ago, Thornliebanktrueblue said:

What age were we all and where were we that fateful day. I was 9. In grans house in Thornliebank listening to radio. 

Very same story as yourself mate, wasnt allowed to go to the game. So listened to it with my dad (I think) on the radio. I lived in Kinning Park at the time, went to Ibrox Primary, the school across from the stadium. I'm from a massive, Rangers supporting family, trying to find out if they were OK was near impossible. I couldn't sleep for days thinking about the poor Rangers supporters who lost their lives 😔

[tannerall 24,557]

January 2nd 2021

On this day we have a league fixture. Our club at home against Celtic. 

 Before the kick off we will have the minute's silence to reflect. Each of us will have their own memories and thoughts.

 

And after ? 

If we win, celebrate and be proud.  If we draw, celebrate and be proud. If we lose, celebrate and be proud. 

Because win, lose or draw, we will all be safely home to  celebrate their memory and the pride we have that they will forever be part of the Rangers Family.

[LiverpoolBlue 889]

On 25/11/2020 at 10:12, Thornliebanktrueblue said:

What age were we all and where were we that fateful day. I was 9. In grans house in Thornliebank listening to radio. 

I'll never forget, I was 14, we'd lived in Australia for a few years, we were sailing back to Scotland, had just come through a storm in the Caribbean when the news came through.

[Bergerloyal 42]

Thanks eejay.

I should have added that I am not a new Member. I've been on for several years (don't post too much certainly). But my previous Profile (broxieman) was corrupted in the switch over, so had to start a fresh one - with help from Zetland.

WATP.

[GOAT 23,226]

Bryan Todd, Robert McAdam, Peter Wright, John Gardiner, Richard Bark, William Thomson Summerhill, George Adams, John Neill, James Trainer.

Richard Douglas Morrison, James Whyte Rae, David Douglas McGee, Robert Colquhoun Mulholland, David Ronald Paton, George McFarlane Irwin, Ian Frew, John Crawford, Brian Hutchison.

Duncan McIsaac McBrearty, Charles John Griffiths Livingstone, Adam Henderson, Richard McLeay, David Cummings Duff, David Fraser McPherson, Robert Lockerbie Rae, Robert Campbell Grant, John McNeil McLeay.

David Anderson, John Buchanan, John McInnes Semple, John Jeffrey, Robert Maxwell, Matthew Reid, Alexander McIntyre, Peter Gilchrist Farries, Thomas Melville.

John James McGovern, George Wilson, Robert Charles Cairns, Hugh McGregor Addie, James Yuille Mair, Margaret Oliver Ferguson, Robert Turner Carrigan, George Alexander Smith, Walter Robert Raeburn.

Andrew Jackson Lindsay, Charles Dougan, William Mason Philip, Russell Morgan, Peter Gordon Easton, George Crockett Findlay, Charles Stirling, Thomas Dickson, James Graham Gray.

Thomas McRobbie, Ian Scott Hunter, Nigel Patrick Pickup, Russell Malcolm, Alexander Paterson Orr, Thomas Walker Stirling, James William Sibbald, Frankie Dover, Walter Shields, Thomas Grant, William Duncan Shaw, Donald Robert Sutherland.

 

RIP. 

[TheJacketRFC 1,833]

Only 31 so was not around during this tragic time but the paranoia my Granda had for me going on the supporters bus and attending games due this disaster was frightening. 

No supporters deserve to go to a game to not return home. 

Hope the club do something special to remember them. 

[eejay the dj 30,240]

15 hours ago, TheJacketRFC said:

Only 31 so was not around during this tragic time but the paranoia my Granda had for me going on the supporters bus and attending games due this disaster was frightening. 

No supporters deserve to go to a game to not return home. 

Hope the club do something special to remember them. 

I thought the club had something special planned mate . It seems all very quiet on that front at this moment .

Hopefully we will have something announced soon 

[Barasa 560]

On 23/11/2020 at 20:35, Bergerloyal said:

Another story ......... a couple of weeks before Xmas we had our monthly meeting of the Supporters Club. We had a guy in the Club who was a bit of a nuisance - a big lad with huge hands called appropriately "Barabbas"- so it was proposed that he be barred from the Bus and probably the Club. A couple of us said that he was working the back shift that night so wasn't there to defend himself. We suggested to hold off until he could come in person. Motion carried.

As I said above, I wasn't on the bus for the game. But the next morning the tv cameras were going round the hospitals, to the beds, and asking the folks what happened to them. One young lad from my street in Dunipace told his story. He told how he was pulled down with bodies on top of him. He couldn't breathe. Then he felt arms and hands wrap around his face, and "cocooned" him to give him air. He was in tears. He was saved by that action. Then he finished and said - "Big Barabbas saved me".

Barabbas died that day on Stairway 13.

There never was another motion to expel him.

There but for the Grace of God.

 

Barabbas was a man with the mind of a child, & I don't mean any disrespect with that. He would go round knocking the doors asking all the kids to come out for a game. He helped build a park with goals on a farmers field at the top of Little Denny Road, where we would play 22 a side all ages.

I went on the bus the year before & like to think he was one who lifted me over, but can't remember.

My user name was kind of inspired by his name as well.

[Bergerloyal 42]

Yup that's him. Huge hands and strength. Worked in the paper mills.

[tannerall 24,557]

On 10/12/2020 at 08:09, eejay the dj said:

I thought the club had something special planned mate . It seems all very quiet on that front at this moment .

Hopefully we will have something announced soon 

Hopefully they can find a good balance between the private respect and the public respect. Many folk will have their own memories and thoughts.

An occasion that will always be close to the hearts of the good folk of Glasgow and beyond. It was the worst day imaginable, but the response of the city as a whole on that day and subsequent days was immense.

[real boydie9 3,339]

I was really young when it happened. As I've mentioned before I lived in Kinning Park at the time. The memory of hearing the ambulance sirens heading towards Ibrox still haunts me to this day.

Whenever i was with my dad our conversation was ALWAYS about the Rangers, right up to the day before he died, but we always found it difficult to speak about what happened on that terrible day in 1971, it was just too painful. It still is and always will be. 

Really nice touch by @eejay the dj starting this thread. Interesting and sad hearing about my fellow Rangers supporters memories of that fateful day 😔

[colwot 8]

There were about a dozen of us from the supporters bus, halfway up the terracing, behind the goal at the Rangers end. When celtic scored, three of my mates from school said to me, "We're going to head up to the top of the terracing and watch the end of the game from there". I said I'd wait with the rest of the lads until the end of the game. 16 years old and that may have been
the best decision of my life!

After the final whistle I got separated from the rest of the lads on the way up to the top of the terracing. I remember getting to the top of Stairway 13 and the crowd had almost stopped moving. There was an old boy, stood on top of a pie stall, shouting for people to get back. I climbed over a fence and went down the grass verge beside the stairs. I remember it being steep, slippy, and with a bit of a drop at the bottom.

I got back to the bus and the convenor made a head count - 3 missing. It was my schoolmates who left us after the celtic goal. I said to the convenor that they probably left the ground before us. He gave them another 10 minutes and then the bus left.

On the bus, we knew nothing about the disaster. The bus may have had a radio, but the reception was always very crackly while the engine was running, so the radio would not have been on. Someone said that there were some broken barriers but didn't know anything else.

Arriving home, unusually there were several people, including my father, waiting to meet the bus. My dad asked me about the accident. I said I'd heard there were some barriers broken. My dad said "There's 13 people dead". All evening there were News Flashes after every programme on the TV, and with each, the death toll had risen.

It wasn't until I got to school on the Monday that I learned that the 3, lads that were missing from the bus, were OK. They had been caught in the crush on the stairway, and had been taken to hospital, but had all survived. In those days, being involved in a National Disaster was no excuse for a day off school!

I don't get to Ibrox very often nowadays, as I don't live in Scotland, but when I do I always take a moment at the two memorials.

[LegendofCoop 10,361]

I don't know if anyone saw it this evening, but STV News had a good 5 minute piece on it. I thought the timing of it was a wee bit unusual, being 11 days away, but they don't usually have regular bulletins during the festive season. 

Seeing the old guys who were there that day.....the emotion in their faces...brought it all into focus. DJ relaying the story of the moment he came out the dressing room and seeing the body bags in the corridor. Shivering stuff. Archie McPherson too (hadn't realised he was there that day) still looking shell shocked. 

Harrowing stuff. 

I really hope we can win the league this season, purely for the memory of the 66! 

RIP.

[tannerall 24,557]

3 hours ago, colwot said:

There were about a dozen of us from the supporters bus, halfway up the terracing, behind the goal at the Rangers end. When celtic scored, three of my mates from school said to me, "We're going to head up to the top of the terracing and watch the end of the game from there". I said I'd wait with the rest of the lads until the end of the game. 16 years old and that may have been
the best decision of my life!

After the final whistle I got separated from the rest of the lads on the way up to the top of the terracing. I remember getting to the top of Stairway 13 and the crowd had almost stopped moving. There was an old boy, stood on top of a pie stall, shouting for people to get back. I climbed over a fence and went down the grass verge beside the stairs. I remember it being steep, slippy, and with a bit of a drop at the bottom.

I got back to the bus and the convenor made a head count - 3 missing. It was my schoolmates who left us after the celtic goal. I said to the convenor that they probably left the ground before us. He gave them another 10 minutes and then the bus left.

On the bus, we knew nothing about the disaster. The bus may have had a radio, but the reception was always very crackly while the engine was running, so the radio would not have been on. Someone said that there were some broken barriers but didn't know anything else.

Arriving home, unusually there were several people, including my father, waiting to meet the bus. My dad asked me about the accident. I said I'd heard there were some barriers broken. My dad said "There's 13 people dead". All evening there were News Flashes after every programme on the TV, and with each, the death toll had risen.

It wasn't until I got to school on the Monday that I learned that the 3, lads that were missing from the bus, were OK. They had been caught in the crush on the stairway, and had been taken to hospital, but had all survived. In those days, being involved in a National Disaster was no excuse for a day off school!

I don't get to Ibrox very often nowadays, as I don't live in Scotland, but when I do I always take a moment at the two memorials.

Thank you for posting your memories, @colwot, there are few left who experienced the tragedy directly. 

For my own part, I was too young to go to an old firm game, but my dad and uncle made the choice to go down the PRW after the final whistle, oblivious to the tragedy rather than taking their more usual route of Stairway 13 then the Copland Road subway  to Merkland Street, to buy a fish supper then have a few to many pints and whiskies in Partick before heading back home to Knightswood. IWe did not know they were safe till they arrived back at 9.30 that night, as they left the pubs early as the news filtered through.No mobile phones in those days.  I often wonder if that choice was made due to congestion on the other side of the terrace up to Stairway 13. I'll never know now. And the real truth of what happened will probably remain unknown. 

 

I do not know what the club will do, as mentioned before they will hopefully get the balance between private grief and public grief correct. 

I notice there are hints of a new memorial, and think this would be the best gesture. 

The current memorial of arguably our most famous player and captain which bears the names of those who died is of course a remarkable tribute, but I am sure all of us, including Mr Greig himself would like to see a suitable memorial dedicated solely to those who died or were injured, and their relatives and friends.  This in my opinion would be the best thing we should aim for, and hopefully a nice wee title win could also be dedicated not only to those who haven't seen a league trophy win yet, but also to those who's chance of seeing another trophy win were so taken so sadly from them. 

[bob1873 391]

I was at the game with my uncles best pal who took me to all the games. I was just a wee boy but I remember we always left by stairway 13 that day we left through the rear of the centenary stand and I clearly remember looking up and seeing thousands coming down those steps. My uncles pal said we did the right thing avoiding the crowds. Never knew anything was amiss until we got back and he dropped me at my grannies.
I‘ll never ever forget that day I can’t believe it’s 50 years.

[bluenoz 15,086]

This Jan 2 will be an Old Firm game like no other.

There will be a lot of heavy hearts from older bears. My father and uncle were at the game in the main stand. I was at home as an 8 yr old listening to the updates on my dad's transistor radio. I remember that radio for all the paint drippings on it.

Such a sad day, not just in football but in Scottish history.