2nd January 1971

Football fans crushed at Ibrox

More than 200 fans were injured, and 66 were killed in a crush at Ibrox Park at the end of a game between Rangers and Celtic. A report in the following day’s edition of The People explained that “there was – in the words of a police sergeant – ‘a mad rush of people towards the exits’ as the final whistle blew. Then somebody fell. Somebody fell on top of him. And it snowballed until a crush barrier collapsed.”

The Sunday Mirror called it “Britain’s worst-ever soccer disaster”, continuing, “bodies of the dead, the dying and the injured were lined up on the pitch and on the terraces as ambulances battled through the crowds. An ambulance man reported: ‘in almost every case it seems that death was caused by suffocation. Very few people suffered outward injuries’.”