Ibrox Disaster, January 2nd, 1971

These are the moving words of ambulanceman Jack Kirkland, one of the many who did what they could to save lives on that dark night at Ibrox. 

After the final whistle at Ibrox that Saturday I went off home, unaware that anything unusual had happened, for I’d left from an exit far from the Copland Road end of the Stadium and the stairway where the horror of Ibrox took place.

I was whistling when I arrived home, ready for my tea, and a relaxing Saturday night in front of the television. My young daughter came running out to meet me and I held out my arms to her. Then I realised she wasn’t smiling or laughing at me. She was breathless and shouting. ‘Daddy, daddy! There’s a man on the phone. He says you’ve to hurry.’ I ran past her and into the house.

It was the duty control officer who was calling. ‘A barrier’s collapsed at Ibrox, Jack. It looks bad. We have reports coming in all the time.’

‘But I’ve just come from there…’ and I thought, it can’t be that bad. I would have known, surely?

‘It happened just after the final whistle. News of it is just beginning to come through. You’d better get back there, right now. There’s a fleet of ambulances on its way now. I’m afraid the single duty ambulance that’s always there is sorely inadequate.’

When I arrived at Ibrox the scene was one of complete chaos. People were running about all over the place, shock etched on their faces. I had to fight my way through the crowd to reach the ambulance room in the main building.

I just wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted me when I arrived there. There wasn’t an unoccupied room in the building; patients were lying everywhere, on floors, in corridors, being treated by the St Andrew’s Ambulance Volunteers in attendance. I saw two young nurses, only girls themselves, giving mouth to mouth resuscitation to men who lay dying, ribs crushed, faces smeared with blood. The air was filled with the cries of the dying and the injured. In the melee I managed to find my colleague, Robert Brown. We decided the best thing we could do was to return to the Main Stand and liaise with the senior police officer.

We had to step over bodies that had been laid on the ground. Men moaning in pain, their faces pain weary. Police and ambulance men were giving the injured and unconscious oxygen or mouth to mouth resuscitation. Rescuers were taking many to the Main Stand for medical attention.

I checked in with ambulance control. No one hospital could cope with the number of injured we had here. Five hospitals were alerted to receive casualties. The Southern General was to take the majority of the injured. Others went to the Victoria, the Western, the Royal and the Royal Alexandria in Paisley. Paisley ambulance control too had been requested to assist and had despatched three ambulances.

Off duty ambulance officers and men had rushed from their homes to HQ to take up duty as soon as they heard the news of the disaster on radio or television. The officers had been sent to the hospitals receiving casualties and the police mortuary. Their task, to speed up the turn round of ambulances and to make sure they were fully equipped before returning to the stadium.

Soon, processions of stretcher-bearers were carrying the injured to the waiting ambulances. No one spared themselves. Football officials from both teams worked as hard as anyone, the disbelief at the enormity of what had happened evident on all their faces. As soon as ambulances were loaded they were heading for different hospitals. And then it was back for more stretchers, and seemingly unending stream of injured.

In all, eighteen ambulances worked a shuttle service between the stadium and the hospitals. The ambulances had a difficult task. The heavy traffic congestion that happens after every football fixture would have badly hampered their progress, but thanks to the expert police assistance they got through, with most of their patients being given oxygen therapy on the way.

Outside the ground, crowds of people, drawn by the news of the disaster on radio or television, stood silently, wondering if their loved ones were those in the ambulances – or worse – under one of those growing number of blankets on the ground inside. Once all the casualties were safely away, Robert Brown and I had the unenviable task of arranging for the transportation of the dead to the police mortuary.

The fatalities had been lined in rows inside, underneath the training tunnel, but when we tried to reverse our ambulances into the tunnel we realised that it was too low. The bodies would have to be brought out. With much reluctance we commandeered a groundsman’s two wheel trolley. The stretchers were loaded onto it and pushed through the tunnel to the ambulances. That is a sight that really shook me. The indignity of having to transport those bodies that way seemed just too much.

It took the best part of an hour to complete this heartbreaking task. By the end there was hardly a face that wasn’t streaked with tears.

When I checked in with ambulance control, it was to be told that Robert and I were to come to the Southern General hospital to arrange for the transportation of further bodies to the police mortuary. The Southern was a hive of activity when we arrived there. Glasgow Corporation had offered to supply private cars for the transportation of the not so badly injured to their homes after treatment, and this offer had been gratefully taken up. Ambulances, taxis and cars zoomed in and out constantly. The ambulance crews were totally exhausted.

Robert and I had only just arrived and and were talking with one of the crews when a taxi drew up and two men got out. They were supporting a third man, who was so shocked and white I thought at first he had been injured. One of the men came forward. ‘It’s his wee boy,’ he to indicated the third man who looked barely able to stand. ‘He went to the match, and didn’t come home. We’ve been to the stadium, the police sent us here. Said a few children had been taken to the hospital.’

The man suddenly started to cry. ‘Don’t tell me he’s deid. Please don’t tell me he’s deid’ One of the ambulance men went toward him. ‘I brought in a boy not long ago. What was your boy’s name?’

The man whispered his boy’s name in a sob. I think we all held our breath. We all prayed.

The ambulance man clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘Aye, that’s him’ he said, ‘he’s a casualty. All he’s got is an injury to his ankle.’ The man suddenly threw his arms around him and hugged him. Tears of joy streaming down his face. ‘Aw thanks,’ he kept saying. ‘Aw God, thanks.’

He was one of the lucky ones. Others, unfortunately, had sad news awaiting them.

In their endeavours to save lives, 3,240 gallons of oxygen were used. It may be that no lives were saved that way, that’s something that we’ll never know, but we like to think that there’s somebody walking about out there today because of that oxygen.

Next day, Sunday, we were out again going round the various hospitals and the police mortuary to pick up our equipment. I was talking to a young policeman outside the mortuary when an old woman approached us.

‘Son,’ she said to me. ‘I’ve lived in that building for over forty years,’ and with a blue veined hand she indicated the tenement overlooking the mortuary. ‘I’ve seen ambulances come and go, but I’ve never seen anything like what I saw last night. A long line of ambulances stretching as far as my old eyes could see. Down there…’ She gazed along the road as if she could still see them now. ‘ I knew what was in those ambulances, and I just sat and cried. Do you know what I mean, son?’ Her watery blue eyes filled up with tears. ‘I just had to come out of the house to talk to somebody. Do you understand, son?’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I understand fine.’ She walked away, shaking her head and muttering. ‘It’s a terrible thing. A terrible thing.’

‘It’s funny, for everyone there’s something, just one thing, that makes tragedy sink in,’ the young policeman said. I knew what he meant. I was thinking of bringing those bodies out through the training tunnel. ‘Do you know what it was for me?’ he went on. ‘It was when I went into Govan police station, and there, lined up in pathetic wee bundles were all the personal belongings of the dead. That’s when it really hit me.’

All through that night the police were magnificent. They went to any lengths to help the public, and us. Whenever I hear people complaining about the police, I remember Ibrox, and their tireless efforts to help everyone. They do a hazardous job, to the best of their ability. It’s a pity they’re only appreciated when they’re needed.

Thanks to everyone…

The first print run of Temple of Dreams has completely sold out and there are now plans to bring out a paperback version in the new year. Thanks to everyone who has bought a copy, hope you enjoyed it.

And I really should try to update this blog more often…

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Back to Bavaria

Later this month, Rangers will travel to Germany to play FC Nuremberg in a pre-season friendly at the Franken Stadion. It won’t be the first time Rangers have played there, though. In 1967 it was the scene of one of the biggest matches in the club’s history, a European Cup Winners Cup final against Bayern Munich.

Thousands of Rangers fans travelled to Bavaria for the game and this extract from my book Follow On: 50 Years of Rangers in Europe, tells the story of one dedicated supporter’s epic journey across the continent to see his heroes.

 

 

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BUY IT HERE! – Temple of Dreams: The Changing Face of Ibrox

 

They arrived in Nuremberg by plane, train and automobile. Some even made the journey by foot. It started with a trickle on the Monday and by Tuesday it had become a flood. Many had taken a week off work, while others simply headed off to Bavaria without telling their boss, and without knowing if they would have a job to return to. In an era when package holidays were still in their infancy and foreign travel was something of a luxury, for some it was the first time they had ever been abroad.

Rangers were in the final of the European Cup Winners Cup, with Bayern Munich the opponents, and thousands of dedicated fans were determined to be there to see if their heroes could finally win a European title.

Getting to the south of Germany was not easy. The straightforward option for those who could afford it was to fly. Glasgow-based travel firms had laid on charter flights and even as late as the Monday before the match, one company was offering fans a final chance to make the trip. The advertisement for Holiday Enterprises of Partick Cross even said planes could be laid on at one hour’s notice if there were sufficient numbers. A fleet of coaches also left Scotland for the trip to Bavaria. Nuremberg is approximately 1,000 miles from Glasgow, which would be bad enough in the luxury coaches that are available today, but in the late 60s a bus journey of that distance was a test of endurance.

Then there were those who hitchhiked their way across Europe to see their team, only spending money on the cost of a cross-channel ferry ticket at Dover. They arrived looking bedraggled, with barely a pfennig to their name, but clutching their flags and flutes and proudly wearing their red, white and blue scarves round their necks.

Bobby Sorbie was a 17-year-old apprentice commercial artist from East Kilbride, who followed Rangers home and away in Scotland. Going to Germany for the most important match in their history seemed like the logical thing to do. So he got his first passport and set off with his pal Malky on an epic journey across Europe, with just a few pounds in their pocket and no real plan. They were dropped off in Hamilton by the side of the main road south and started looking for a lift.

Bobby, now a Lanarkshire businessman, said, ‘We got to Beattock where we went into the transport caff. A lorry driver saw us walking in with our Union Jacks and scarves and asked us where we were going. We replied Nuremberg! Luckily he was able to give us a lift right down to London and my pal had worked for British Rail so we got cheap tickets to Dover and then a ferry to Ostend.’

On the boat they befriended a Belgian student who, it turned out, was going to Germany and he gave the pair a lift all the way through Belgium and as far as Munich, less than 100 miles from their destination. ‘What an experience that was,’ remembered Bobby. ‘He was a nutcase! He was driving through the night, steering with his knees and playing the mouth organ. We were teaching him all the songs and he was playing along.’

After being deposited in Munich, Bobby and Malky fell foul of the local police who issued them with an on the spot fine of five marks for hitchhiking. The police apparently didn’t appreciate the fact that they were standing at the side of the autobahn with their Union Jack on prominent display as cars raced past at 100 mph. Having escaped the attentions of the authorities, the duo then managed to get lost in a wood, which later turned out to be the Black Forest.

‘Next we jumped on a log train, even though we had no idea where it was going!’ said Bobby. ‘We ended up coming across a shop somewhere that had a statue of a British policeman inside so we assumed they could speak English. It turned out to be a tourist agency and amazingly they all had a whip-round when they heard out plight. They pointed us in the right direction and told us where to stand so we wouldn’t get done by the police again.’

The final leg was completed with the help of a German Scout master – ‘We told him we were Scouts, which was why we had a big Union Jack’ – and they arrived in Nuremberg around 30 hours after setting off. In the city they bumped into a journalist from the Evening Times called Gair Henderson. ‘We gave him our story and they gave us money so we could spend a night in a hotel,’ said Bobby. ‘The night before we had slept in a ploughed field with the flag to keep us warm.’ When the article hit the papers, the lads became minor celebrities with Scottish and German newspapers desperate to tell their story. They happily agreed – for a small fee of course.

They used Nuremberg’s grand railway station as a base during the day, passing the time in the bars where they drank beer from giant steins. Dozens of other Rangers fans in the same position also descended on the station and turned it into an unofficial HQ. The people of Nuremberg took the young supporters to their hearts and delivered them food and beer. Some were even invited back to family homes and presented with traditional Bavarian tankards as mementos of their trip.

With its chocolate box houses, beautiful churches, cobbled squares and medieval city walls, Nuremberg looks like a picture postcard Bavarian town. But its very name is enough to conjure up images of the darkest period in Europe’s history. The city was the site of the notorious National Socialist Party rallies of the 1930s and the municipal stadium where the final was to be played was part of the rally grounds. It was also used as a parade ground for the Hitler Youth.

During the war, Nuremberg was a centre for the production of aircraft and tank engines and as a result large parts of the old centre were destroyed in Allied air raids, only to be rebuilt in almost identical form in the post-war years. Between 1945 and 1949, Nazi officials who took part in the Holocaust were tried in what became known as the Nurenberg Trials. In the late sixties, these events would still have been painfully fresh in the minds of those who travelled from Scotland, yet there were no reports, either in the media or from the local police of it being an issue in any way.

Bobby, Malky and a few other early arrivals went to the airport on the Monday morning to meet the team as they arrived. After chatting at length to players like Willie Johnston and Kai Johansen they managed to get precious tickets for the game from John Lawrence and Scot Symon, a wonderful gesture. That night, they were among a group of around 30 fans who ended up in bunks at a local Catholic mission, of all places.

‘The people there were really nice.’ Said Bobby. ‘All the people in Nuremberg were fantastic in fact. They fed us and gave us gifts. One young family took about eight of us back to their home and fed us. It was amazing and I don’t think it would happen here.’

There was not a hint of trouble from the Rangers fans, although the local chief of police did find it necessary to issue a warning following the pitch invasion by Celtic fans at the National Stadium in Lisbon the previous week. He said, ‘There will be no repeat here.’

As Wednesday, the day of the match, arrived, the scramble for tickets began in earnest. The Nuremberg Stadium could hold a crowd of 70,000 but with Munich less than 100 miles away, the vast majority of the fans would be backing the Germans. For the 5,000 or so Rangers fans in town it was going to be difficult to get in. Touts were selling briefs for four-times their face value on the main thoroughfare Konigstrasse.

As expected the Nuremberg Stadium was a sell-out and it was a magnificent scene. The terraces were almost full an hour before kick-off and they were covered with the red and white flags of the Bayern fans, who took up the vast majority of the stadium. Exploding fireworks lit up the overcast sky, and the small band of Rangers fans among 65,000 Germans did their best to be heard. But the cacophony of shouts and whistles coming from the home support was deafening. Shortly before the game started there was the bizarre sight of a Rangers fan being carried round the track on a stretcher, doing his best to get away from the ambulance men who were escorting him. Then, a German band in full traditional dress took to the field to provide a fanfare for the trophy, and the stadium erupted again as the teams appeared, Bayern in their change strip of white tops and red shorts, Rangers in light blue and white.

Sheer weight of numbers might have meant the Scots were outperformed on the terraces but on the pitch it was Rangers who were on top, throughout the first half. Chance after chance went unclaimed as the Scots took the game to the home team. The best chance of the first half fell to Roger Hynd after half an hour. Dave Smith evaded Beckenbauer and cut the ball back from the goal line into the path of the temporary centre forward, stabbed it left-footed towards goal. Maier managed to get a hand to the shot and as the ball rolled agonisingly towards the net he dived on top of it for a second time to save the day. The Rangers pressure continued but they couldn’t find a way of putting the ball in the net.

After a gruelling 90 minutes the match remained goalless and moved into extra time. Two minutes into the first period, Roger Hynd had a back-post header tipped over the bar by Maier. Four minutes later, the Rangers players and fans thought they had finally got the breakthrough. Hynd rose in the penalty area with Maier and the ball broke. The Rangers man was first to react and rolled it into the net. Before the celebrations could begin, the Italian referee had blown for a foul on the goalkeeper. There was definitely contact between the two, and in the current era there is no doubt it would have been a foul, but in those days it was a highly contentious decision.

The incident seemed to kill the game stone dead. The exhausted players slowed down to walking speed and seemed content to play out for a replay. Then, in the second period of extra time, disaster struck for Rangers. A long ball into the penalty area looked harmless enough, but as the ball dropped, Franz Roth, ‘The Bull’, managed to twist his body and stuck out a leg to hook it past Martin into the net.

 Rangers desperately tried to get an equaliser but it was too late. After a brave battle they had lost, and what made it all the more difficult to take was that they had been the better team. On the final whistle, thousands of Germans invaded the pitch to celebrate, and many of them even joined the players on their lap of honour. There was no disgrace in losing to Bayern but the sense of disappointment was amplified by the thought of what could have been and tears flowed as the players left the pitch. Roger Hynd, unfairly branded the scapegoat, hurled his runners-up medal into the crowd such was his despair.

For the fans, the result was a huge disappointment after a wonderful trip. ‘The whole game went by in a flash but we should have won,’ said Bobby Sorbie. ‘There was about 6000 of us in there but the majority were Bayern Munich fans. Afterwards the German fans were brilliant too, they had never seen anything like us and wanted to swap scarves as souvenirs. The whole trip was a great experience although getting home was a nightmare and even worse than coming over, because there were so many of us looking for a lift’.

It was a sombre Rangers party that arrived home at Glasgow Airport the following afternoon. At Ibrox, a small band of supporters were present to welcome the team bus home. It was a sad end to what could have been a glorious trip.

New Rangers strip

Since so many people have visited the site looking for the new Rangers strip, I thought I’d post a picture of it, as modelled by Kevin Thomson (the next Rangers cap’n anyone?).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please call again…

Laugh your way around New York

Here is a handy map showing where many of the great (and not so great) US TV sitcoms of the last few decades have been set. Ideal for planning a themed weekend trip around New York. Of course most – if not all – were actually filmed in Hollywood, but never mind.

Click here for the map and other pop culture charts

Al fresco quaffing, Glasgow style

A glorious snapshot of daily life in Scotland’s biggest city, courtesy of Google Street View, outside Ibrox subway station. 

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Gratuitious picture of a supermodel in a Rangers strip

For no other reason other than to cheer everyone up after a depressing weekend, here is lifelong bluenose Gisele with a Rangers strip and tartan mini-skirt.

Ibrox Disaster 1971 – The Darkest Hour

It was the night panic spread throughout Scotland. In thousands of homes across the country, mothers, wives and girlfriends fretted, as news slowly emerged of a terrible accident on the stairway at Ibrox Park. In the days before mobile phones, they faced an agonising wait for confirmation that their sons, husbands and boyfriends were safe. For most, the anguish was short-lived, their fears allayed when their loved ones eventually walked – or in some cases, staggered – through the front door, oblivious to the events at the stadium. Tears of relief followed.

But for the devastated families of 66 Rangers supporters, there was no relief, no emotional reunion. The tears did flow, but they were tears of grief. Their loved ones didn’t come through the front door. Instead they died in the most agonising way imaginable, the life literally squeezed out of them on what became known as Stairway 13.

The date was 2 January 1971. Four decades later, the sense of loss and disbelief at how so many people lost their lives in such horrific circumstances remains. How could this possibly have happened? All they had done was go out to watch their favourite football team.

The most likely cause is that someone stumbled on their way down the stairway – possibly a youth who had been on a friend’s shoulders – causing the crowd to cave in. As more fans left the terraces, the crush intensified, resulting in the collapse of several steel barriers that ran up the centre of the stairway. Because there were so many people, there was simply no escape for those caught up in the crush.

In the end 66 people lost their lives in the Ibrox Disaster. Each of the victims had their own poignant story. They ranged in age from nine to 43 and came from all walks of life and all parts of Scotland. More than a third were still in their teens. There was one female among the dead – 18-year-old Margaret Ferguson.  Five schoolboy friends from the same street in the Fife village of Markinch travelled to the game together and died together. Their funerals all took place on the same day, each attended by a Rangers player.

On the 38th anniversary of the Ibrox Disaster, this is the story of Craig Smith, who lost his father George in the tragedy, reproduced from Temple of Dreams: The Changing Face of Ibrox.

My father was a kind and loving man who always had a smile on his face. In fact he was smiling the last time I saw him, on the day of the Old Firm game in January 1971. As he put his coat on to go to the game I asked if I could go with him. He laughed and told me I was ‘too wee’ (I was only four) but promised me that he would take me to another game instead.

My dad kissed us all goodbye and walked out the door. At about ten to five there was a news flash on TV saying there had been an accident at Ibrox. There was no suggestion of the scale of what had happened, just that some people had been injured.

My mother looked worried but not concerned, but as the night wore on she started to get more anxious. They had arranged to go to the golf club dance, so she was concerned that dad hadn’t called. She started to call round friends and family but no one had heard anything.

Then suddenly, the doorbell rang. My brother, Stephen, went to answer it, and I heard a scream from my mum. Stephen and my other brother George were standing with tears pouring down their faces.

He went to the game with his younger brother John, brother-in-law Alex, and two others. They all left together and headed for Stairway 13. As they got to the top they were separated from each other by the mass of supporters trying to leave the ground.

My dad was forced round to the first stairway nearest the wooden fence. John and Alex were forced apart and down the next two stairways. John was unable to move and passed out. My dad was trapped, penned in, between bodies, dead and alive, against the wooden fence, the life being squeezed out of him.

John was passed over a sea of people and over the fence. As he came to, still groggy, he looked up to see his brother, my dad, standing upright, crushed to death, his face resting on the wooden fence.

I will never forget my mother’s scream, the sound of people coming down the stairs of the house, my uncles hugging me and my brothers, saying your ‘Daddy’s dead son, your daddy’s dead.’ I remember thinking ‘They must have got it all wrong, how can he be dead? He was at a football match – people don’t die at football matches’.

After the disaster we received lots of support and comfort from friends and family. But the most touching thing that arrived was a envelope through the door. Inside was £30 and a simple note read ‘Sorry. I hope this can help. From a Tim.’

 

Word of the Day: Schadenfreude

scha·den·freu·de   (shäd’n-froi’də)   n.   Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. [German : Schaden, damage (from Middle High German schade, from Old High German scado) + Freude, joy (from Middle High German vreude, from Old High German frewida, from frō, happy).]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

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Move over Lorraine…

I wonder if Bill Bryson still gets a bit of a thrill when he walks into WH Smith and sees his latest book on the shelves.  I have to say it’s still something of a novelty for me to see mine on display, especially when it’s at Number 5 in the charts alongside big-hitters like Maw Broon, Ian Rankin and Lorraine Kelly. I was so excited I had to take a picture. Tragic really.