On This Day – 2nd January
Today’s ‘On This Day’ we remember the 66 football fans who died at Ibrox Stadium on 2nd January 1971.
The disaster happened at the end of an Old Firm Derby between Rangers and Celtic. It was an uneventful game until the 89th minute when Celtic scored to take the lead.
Rangers attacked to try and snatch an equaliser and they got one from their striker Colin Stein in injury time.
However, tragedy was soon to strike as the 80,000 fans started leaving the stadium. In the corner of the ground leading towards the nearby Copland Road subway station, some people fell down on the exit stairway.
This caused a chain-reaction pile up of people and as more fans came down the stairway, more became trapped in the crush.
Drastic changes were made in the aftermath of the tragedy and Ibrox became an all-seater stadium in 1981.
66 fans passed away in the tragedy and more than 22 fans were injured. There is a memorial to those people lost in the disaster at Ibrox today and is pictured below.
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