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The Holte End, Villa Park [Credit: Elliott Brown via Creative Commons]

Meet the Scotsman who designed some of Britain and Ireland’s most iconic stadiums, yet whose career could so easily have been ended when tragedy struck on his very first job.

As football took off in both Scotland and England in the late Victorian era, so the public flocked in ever increasing numbers to football matches. This led to a requirement for purpose-built stadiums rather than roped-off parkland or cricket ovals.

Rangers opened Ibrox Park in 1887, inaugurated with an 8-1 defeat to a Preston North End side nearing its prime. Celtic Park and Everton’s Goodison Park followed in 1892.

But it was the redesign of Ibrox Park in the late 1890s that would launch the career of Rangers fan and architect Archibald Keir Leitch.

Leitch had been born in Camlachie, Glasgow, on 27 April 1865 and named after his father, a blacksmith. He started out as a draughtsman and his work took him to India and Ceylon (modern day Sri Lanka), where he designed tea factories in Deltota.

Ibrox Park, home of Rangers FC [Credit: Chris Phan via Creative Commons]

Ibrox Park had been the home of Rangers since 1887 and had hosted two internationals and a Scottish FA Cup final in its first five years. But the ground was dogged with issues in future cup finals in the early 1890s and by the end of the decade, the club moved across the park to its current location. Rangers called on Leitch to create a stadium that matched its lofty ambitions.

The result was a 40,000-capacity Oval opened on 30 December 1899. It had covered lateral stands, including an iconic pagoda-style pavilion, and additional curved, wooden stands open to the elements at either end were added by 1902 bringing the capacity to 80,000.

On 5 April 1902, Ibrox Park hosted an eagerly-anticipated match against England. The match was originally penned in for Celtic’s Parkhead but Rangers claimed its ground could hold 20,000 more fans. 74,000 spectators braved the heavy rain to come to the game, but 25 would not leave alive.

Football historian Paul Brown describes Leitch’s West Terrace as consisting “of racked wooden floor beams, supported by a steel frame, on concrete foundations. The beams at the back of the terrace were suspended 40 feet above the ground.”

Despite the terracing being approved by the Govan Burgh Surveyor, nine minutes into the game, a shot caused excitement in the crowd and “it seems likely that the sheer pressure of weight caused what happened next,” Brown adds.

A section of the terrace collapsed and hundreds fell to the ground. Leitch was there to witness it. 25 died and 587 were injured. The game continued to a 1-1 draw with many in other parts of the ground unaware of the unfolding disaster. The following month, the match was replayed at Villa Park and £1,000 was raised for victims. Unfortunately, it was not the last time that disaster would strike Ibrox.

The resulting inquest blamed rain for weakening the beams. Glasgow architect John Gordon was called on to inspect the western terracing. He concluded that the seventeen joists that had given way were made of poor-quality yellow pine, which is far easier to break than stronger red pine. According to reports, Leitch had been assured by the supplier that the pine was up to specification and he had no idea an inferior quality had been used.

The supplier of the beams was charged and later acquitted of culpable homicide. What could have been an early and terminal blow to Leitch’s stadium-building career proved anything but. As his biographer, Simon Inglis, writes “he did what any decent designer would do in the circumstances. He went back to the drawing board.”

Craven Cottage, Fulham [Credit: Dom Fellowes via Creative Commons]

Lessons were learned and Leitch went on to pioneer new forms of terracing that set the benchmark for much of what we still see today. Leitch’s mark was left around his native Glasgow as he went on to design Hampden Park and Celtic Park before heading south to develop Bramall Lane, Sheffield, Fulham’s Craven Cottage and Stamford Bridge, the ground to be occupied by the newly-formed Chelsea FC. According to Inglis, at the height of Leitch’s career in the 1920s, 16 of the 22 clubs in the English First Division had hired him at some point. His work was on display at Arsenal’s Highbury, Manchester United’s Old Trafford, Aston Villa’s Villa Park, Portsmouth’s Fratton Park, Liverpool’s Anfield, Everton’s Goodison Park, and a host of other grounds.

Despite much of his work being lost in recent stadium redevelopments, his trademark red-brick stands can still be enjoyed today, such as the Johnny Hayes Stand at Craven Cottage, Fulham. Crucially for Leitch personally, Rangers rehired him several times, and his iconic Main Stand at Ibrox still remains.