1971 Ibrox disaster
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| Date | 2 January 1971 |
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| Location | Ibrox Park, Glasgow, Scotland |
| Deaths | 66 |
| Non-fatal injuries | > 200 |
The 1971 Ibrox disaster was a crush among the crowd at an Old Firm football game, which led to 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries. It happened on 2 January 1971 in an exit stairway at Ibrox Park (now Ibrox Stadium) in Glasgow, Scotland. It was the worst British football disaster until the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield, England, in 1989.
The stadium's owners, Rangers F.C., were later ruled to be at fault in a sheriff's judgement on one of the deaths. Rangers did not dispute this ruling, and were sued for damages in 60 other cases brought by relatives of the dead.
The first disaster at Ibrox occurred during a 1902 home international match between Scotland and England. The back of the wooden West Tribune Stand collapsed due to heavy rainfall the previous night, causing 25 deaths and 517 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. On 16 September 1961 two people were killed in a crush on the stairway, and there were two other incidents – in 1967 and 1969 – where several people were injured. Rangers had by then spent a total of £150,000 on improvements to Ibrox, a very significant sum of money for the time.
The disaster occurred on Saturday, 2 January 1971, when 66 people were killed in a crush, as supporters tried to leave the stadium. The match was an Old Firm game (Rangers v Celtic) and was attended by more than 80,000 fans. In the 90th minute, Celtic took a 1–0 lead and some Rangers supporters started to leave the stadium. However, in the final moments of the match, Colin Stein scored an equaliser for Rangers.
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