Ibrox
Ibrox stadium Home of Rangers football club was opened in 1899..
Ibrox is one of only 12 in Europe accorded five-star status by uefa
But unlike many other football clubs Rangers have preserved All that is valuable
of the old and conbined it the best of the new.
As one of the oldest and largest stadia in Britain
And as one of the first wave of predominantly all-seater football grounds in Britain, Ibrox has been identified as a stadium of historical significance. Its architectural importance was recognised
in 1987 with the designation of its South Stand, now named the Bill Struth Main Stand as a Category B listed building
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Ibrox disaster
"As Rangers failed to make any significant challenge to Celtic at the top of the league, 2 January 1971 arrived to make everyone forget about football. At the end of the'Old Firm' clash at Ibrox, the steel barriers on Stairway 13 in the ground gave way and a total of sixty-six people were suffocated to death and many more injured in the resulting crush. It was thought that Colin Stein's dramatic equaliser for Rangers in the final seconds of the match, a minute after Jimmy Johnstone had opened the scoring for Celtic, caused fans who were leaving the ground tocome back and meet a wave of jubilant fans coming in the opposite direction. The inquiry that followed the horrific disaster found this to be untrue. The crowd had remained to the end and were heading in the same direction when the crush took place halfway down Stairway 13. The game had been good-natured and there were just two arrests made by police, both for drunkenness, in the all-ticket crowd of 80,000.
The Old Firm came together to help the victims of the tragedy and a special match between Scotland and a Rangers and Celtic Select XI was played in front of an 81,405 crowd at Hampden."
- Rangers :The Official Illustrated History by Stephen Halliday
The following article comes from the Matchday Programme of January 2nd 1991, the 20th anniversary of the disaster :
A minute's silence will be observed before today's match as a mark of respect to the 66 supporters who tragically lost their lives at Ibrox Stadium on this day, twenty years ago. Willie Waddell wrote at the time:
Ibrox Stadium has been rebuilt in their memory.
Team captain on that tragic day, John Greig, now the club's Public Relations Executive, recalled the events that will remain in his memory forever.
"I sustained an injury during the match," said Greig.
"And it was only some 20 or 30 minutes after the final whistle that I realised the extent of the tragedy. Most of the players left the Stadium knowing something had happened. I stayed behind for treatment, but when I went down the tunnel and saw all those poor people that had died covered up, that was when it hit me."
"The feeling of helplessness surrounded most of the people at Ibrox, and it was left to the professionals to get on with helping those injured."
"I think I can say, probably on behalf of everybody here at Rangers, that will remain the saddest day not only inour life-span, but ever in the history of the club."
"Willie Waddell contacted all of the bereaved families to ask permission for players and officials from the club to attend each and every one of the funerals. An absolutely horrendous time because each individual at the club felt it had happened to their own familes."
"One thing I'll never forget was the next time we played at Ibrox against Dundee United on the 16th of January was the atmosphere inside the park. It was the strangest came I ever played in."
"From a personal point of view it's something I'll never forget. It's always at the back of my mind when I take people around the new stadium we have rebuilt that it has been built in memory for those unfortunate supporters and their families"
"I sincerely hope that we never see the likes of that day at Ibrox or any other ground again."
This quote is from John Greig, speaking after being vote the Greatest Ranger Ever on the 21st March 1999 :
"The disaster will never leave me. Never a day goes by that it doesn't go through my mind. I still get letters from guys who have never been back to Ibrox for a game since that day. I have taken some of them around the stadium for them to see what it is like now. The new stadium is, in fact, a testament to those who died. In the trophy room there is a beautiful picture of the old stadium up on the wall. For me, it is one of the most important things in that room and I make a point of showing it to the people who go there. It's important, especially for the young fans who have only seen the new stadium, that they know the history of this club, where we came from and why we came from that point."
John greig statue
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