In 2010, three people who were closest to the Ibrox tragedy spoke to our sister title The Herald. On the 48th anniversary today, we look back at their poignant words...

IT is a day that will forever haunt Scottish football, the day 66 football fans lost their lives in a huge crush on a staircase during an Old Firm game at Ibrox. The youngest victim was just eight-years-old. Another 145 fans were injured. The disaster on January 2, 1971 preys on the memory of everyone who was there that day – fans, players, officials, pressmen, ambulance crews, police officers. People who watched the news unfold slowly on their television at home will never forget their sense of shock.

Afterwards, a myth grew that the tragedy had been caused by Rangers fans leaving in despair after Jimmy Johnstone scored a late goal to put Celtic in front, only to turn back on hearing that Colin Stein had equalised for Rangers. But a Fatal Accident Inquiry, held the following month, discounted this, finding that those who died had been moving in the same direction.

The inquiry found the 66 had died through being crushed or covered by the bodies of others. Sixty died of asphyxiation, the others from suffocation. Officials inspect the torn and twisted railings on the stairway where 66 people died.

The evidence, the jury added, suggested the accident was caused because at least one person fell or collapsed on the stairway when those who were descending were packed closely together and were being pushed downwards by the pressure of others above and behind them.

“The downward pressure of the crowd above forced other persons to fall or collapse on those who had fallen first,” the jury statement added, “and as the downward pressure continued, more and more persons were heaped upon those who had fallen or were pressed hard against them.”

A police officer told the inquiry that bodies were “like a pack of cards that had been thrown forward. The lower ones were horizontal, others were semi-upright, and the last were upright.”

Stringent safety recommendations for football grounds followed – and Ibrox Stadium itself was changed out of all recognition.

Here, in their own words, three people talk about their memories of January 2, 1971.

WILLIAM MASON - FAN

IT’S odd, but I have never met anyone else who was injured that day. I remember reading in The Herald that there were 145 people injured. I’ve probably passed by some of them at Ibrox.

I was just 18. I was there with five mates. I can’t remember the game. It was probably highly charged, a typical Old Firm game. There was no action until the last couple of minutes. In those days after the bigger games – Old Firm games, European nights – we’d wait five or 10 minutes for the crush to subside; it was common to be lifted off your feet and carried down the stairs to the exit. I remember there were only four exits at Ibrox. There were big crowds then. I’ve been at Scotland-England games at Hampden with the best part of 120,000 people.

I started down the slope but was lifted off my feet, and I remember beginning to slowly fall forward. Halfway down, the crowd stopped but there was no let-up in the pressure. It was unbearable. I remember the sensation of being crushed as I lay almost horizontally. I managed to free my upper chest and managed to breathe.

I think I was trapped for around 45 minutes. I remember hearing people shouting and bawling, but they gradually fell silent. I was suffering from asphyxiation and a lack of oxygen and I desperately wanted to sleep. But someone near kept slapping me in the face – he knew it was important that I remained awake. I don’t know who he was, there was no communication.

Eventually I was hauled bodily out by the police, who carried me down to the pitch. I remember it was freezing cold. The sky was dark and the floodlights were still on. I couldn’t move or talk, I was still in shock. Somebody was going along the pitch, checking the people who were lying on it – “Dead … dead … dead … he’s OK” – and the bodies were taken on stretchers into what I’m sure was the away dressing room. That’s where I was taken. I now know that everybody there was dead. There was absolutely no sound. There was no moaning or groaning, absolutely nothing, and I thought at first that I was dead.

I remember a nurse kept coming in – she was looking for movement or any other signs as she covered people up. The guy next to me sat up and lay back down again. The nurse came over and checked him, then she covered him up. I had seen him sitting up, and that’s when I started crying. That is what triggered it. I was still in shock and couldn’t move, but I was in floods of tears. The nurse must have seen me. She said: “This one’s alive, get him out of here.”



Derek Neilson (left) walked away from the Old Firm game early but witnessed the aftermath of the crush in which William Mason (right) was injured

I was taken from the stadium and transferred by ambulance to the Victoria Infirmary, along with another man who was badly injured. I got treatment for a broken ankle, and crush injuries.

The aftermath of it was that my mother and father didn’t have a phone, but my father-in-law and mother-in-law did. I remembered their number and phoned them. My father-in-law and his friend came to the Victoria to pick me up, and they took me home. When they carried me into the house, my father and mother literally went to bits. They had just thought I’d missed my bus home, and had maybe gone up to the Victoria to see someone who had been taken there. They hadn’t realised I had actually been injured.

I remember watching the television that night and seeing the death toll rising. The TV news didn’t have wall-to-wall coverage as it does now; it was just cutting every now and again to the story. I went to bits as well. Our GP came in and basically sedated me for three days.

What I didn’t find out until after my father had passed away, a couple of years later when he was just 49, was that what happened had a really big effect on him. He was off his work longer than I was off mine. It was he who had taken me to all the games at Ibrox, every other Saturday. I gradually started going with my mates, but I think he felt guilt as he had got me into football, which had nearly killed me.

I find it strange that it all happened 40 years ago. There are several people on this planet who wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me, if you know what I mean – my own children, my grandchildren, and one greatgrandchild. It’s quite strange that it’s coming up to the 40th anniversary. Every year I’m reminded of it.

It would be another 17 years after the disaster before I went back to another game. Well, strictly speaking, my old man took me

to a testimonial game for the disaster fund, at Hampden. He was of the view that if you fell off a horse you should get straight back on it.

The first game I saw myself wasn’t until January 1987, a Rangers-Hamilton Scottish Cup tie, the famous one that Hamilton won through Adrian Sprott. I took my son and we found ourselves amidst the Hamilton fans. When their team scored they went absolutely mad. I just had to sit there in silence. But I’m now back at Ibrox and have a season ticket for a seat, not far from where it all happened.

DEREK NEILSON - MAGISTRATE

RANGERS had gone behind to a Jimmy Johnstone goal with just a few minutes to go and I started to walk up the enclosure steps to get out into Edmiston Drive. Colin Stein scored the equaliser but I had just left. I walked down Copland Road and along the Govan Road and went into a well-known hostelry at Govan Cross, the Black Man’s, or Brechin’s Bar.

There was no point in my going home as my wife, my three daughters and my motherin-law were all in Port Glasgow [visiting relatives]. I was in the public house and could only see the television from an angle. I noticed something was going on. The guy turned it round a wee bit and I said: “My god, that’s Ibrox.” The people in the bar all fell silent. They were just looking at one another. All you could see was a constant procession of bodies being placed along the touchline. I heard the TV saying the deathtoll was rising. The commentator seemed absolutely dumbfounded.

A call had gone out to off-duty hospital staff to return to the Victoria and the Southern General. I was a magistrate at the time and was on the board of management of the Southern General, which was in my Fairfield ward. I rang the police office and asked the duty officer what the situation was like at the Southern. They sent a car for me.

My wife had been watching the events on television in Port Glasgow and she had been phoning the house but of course there was no reply. She must have been getting worried because she rang the police office, only to be told that a car had just picked me up.

I got to the Southern and could not believe my eyes when I saw the number of people sitting in the casualty area and in the corridors. The walking wounded, I would call them. Ninety per cent of them, if not more, had no boots, no shoes, no socks – they had lost them in the crush. Some had their trousers half-hanging off them. It was a freezing cold night, and I knew something had to be done to help them.

I asked one of the people in the casualty office if I could use the phone so that I could arrange transport for the walking wounded. I rang the transport pool at the City Chambers and asked how many cars were on that night and was told there were only two on. I remembered there was a contract with a taxi firm and asked the person to contact them – I said we had God knows how many people at the Southern and they all needed to get home urgently.

The hospital’s gymnasium hall was being used to accommodate bodies because the mortuary was full. Even now, 40 years on, I can close my eyes and see a big sergeant standing there, crying. There were five young teenage boys from Fife, and their bodies were lying on the floor, covered by white sheets. The sight of that has never left me. “The poor wee mites,” the sergeant was saying, and this was probably a guy who had seen a lot.

With another magistrate I went to the Victoria to see how things were there, and to the city mortuary. Some bodies were lying with a tag and a number round their big toe. Many people had lost their jackets in the crush so it was difficult to identify them at that early stage.

One or two days later the members of the magistrates committee, which was the licensing authority for football grounds, went to Ibrox. We stood on the terracing where the accident had occurred. I can still see a photograph that was taken of us; my hands were buried deep in the big, heavy coat I was wearing. I couldn’t believe what we saw there – these were iron or steel barriers and they were lying flat on the ground.

Afterwards, there were the funerals, and a service at Glasgow Cathedral.

What happened in 1971 was absolutely horrendous. Though some people said it was an accident waiting to happen, I don’t see how anybody could have stopped it, in a sense. It was no-one’s fault. It was if the fates decided to play an evil trick. It would have been virtually impossible to try to forecast an accident like that happening or to legislate against it. There were perimeter fences at either side of the steps going down. They were very sturdy and if they had given way, I think there might have been a lot of relatively minor injuries, rather than what we saw. But you have to bear in mind that Ibrox was a fully up-to-date stadium. It was even better than Hampden, which was a bit dog-eared and tattered. The disaster was not an act of God: it was an act that could not be accounted for. Once it was set in motion, it had to be played out to the final act, as the saying goes.

I went back to the football but I was always very wary. If it was really busy I would move around and not always stand in my favourite spot. And instead of running down the stairs I would walk down. I became more safety conscious.

It all seems a long time ago but even now, and I’m 78, I can still see vividly the sheets covering these poor unfortunate wee boys. They must have been excited to see that big match. There were a lot of empty homes as a result of the tragedy. It might be out of sight, as it happened 40 years ago, but it will never be out of mind. Even now, I still get a lump in my throat, just talking about it.

DEREK JOHNSTONE - RANGERS PLAYER

I’VE still got the pictures of that day in my head. They will never go away. I remember coming out of the shower after the game and seeing people being brought in and laid out on the floor. There was no other place to put them. I remember thinking to myself, have they fainted? To be told what had happened really hit me. I don’t think I’ve ever got dressed so quickly in all my life. I think it was just panic. I needed to get out, because they might be bringing in more bodies.

I walked along a wee corridor outside the dressing room, and for some strange reason I turned right and walked down the tunnel and went out on to the track. That is when I saw all the bodies being laid out on the far corner. It was dark and cold, and people were working under the floodlights.

I don’t know if it was a policeman or a doctor, but I said to someone: “What’s happened?” I really didn’t know the extent of it. He said, “There are 30 bodies so far, and more to come.”



Rangers' Derek Johnstone

I turned and went straight out the door and down the Copland Road and got a subway into town. I got to Queen Street station and got on the train back home to Dundee. I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. I cannot remember to this day anything about that journey home, apart from maybe sitting near the front. I just sat there in disbelief. There were both Rangers and Celtic fans on the train, unaware of anything that had happened. They wouldn’t know until they reached home. It was all just so surreal.

On the Monday after the game, Willie Waddell, the manager, said we were going to have at least one representative at every one of the funerals. I ended up going to many of them – in Glasgow, Fife, all over the place. I was just 17 and had only been to one funeral before then: my dad’s, seven years earlier. I was so young, looking back. I was a boy – I was just out of school, really.

Memories of the disaster tend to come back when you hear of the death of your fellow professionals, and they especially come back at this time of year. It was very difficult for the players. We were all devastated, but we had to get on with it. We were a great bunch of lads, always laughing and joking, but for two weeks after the disaster, there was no fun. We were in shock. We trained once in these two weeks and had to play football again, against Dundee United at Ibrox, on January 16. That was hard. We were poor for the rest of the season. I think it just got to everybody, but as players, we just had to get on with it. Football was our living.

I think the supporters who died would have wanted that as well. The manager kept saying to us, “They were all Rangers fans who came here, wanting to see us win, and they still want to see us win – we just have to get out there and play for them.”

January 2 will be a sad day, and it will bring back a lot of memories for the older people who were at that game and are still going to Ibrox. But I’m sure it will bring some solace to the families of the 66 people who died.