1971 Ibrox disaster
crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game
The 1971 Ibrox disaster, also known as the Second Ibrox Disaster, was a crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game (Rangers v Celtic), which led to 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries. It happened on 2 January 1971 on an exit stairway at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Glasgow, Scotland. It was the worst football disaster in Britain until the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, England, in 1989.
The stadium's owner, Rangers FC, was later ruled to be at fault in a sheriff's judgement on one of the deaths. Rangers did not dispute this ruling and was sued for damages in 60 other cases brought by relatives of the dead.
Background
The first disaster at Ibrox occurred during a 1902 home international match between Scotland and England. The rear of the wooden West Tribune Stand collapsed due to heavy rainfall the previous night, causing 25 deaths and more than 500 injuries.
During 1963, concerns were raised about the safety of the stairway adjacent to passageway 13, colloquially known as Stairway 13, the exit closest to Copland Road subway station. It was documented that the stairs provided very little freedom of movement due to crowd pressure; many were lifted off their feet by the crowd and had no choice in which lane they were going to use, or at what pace.
On 16 September 1961, two people were killed in a crush on the stairway.
The public source identifies “1971 Ibrox disaster” as crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ibrox, disaster and crush.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14756553. Authority coordinates are 55.854, -4.307. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1989, 1902 and 1963.
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This entry incorporates text from “1971 Ibrox disaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.