4-page Ibrox Disaster piece in today's Guardian (3/12/20)

Sectarianism is 1 of the main pieces of the article for some reason. I don't really know what that subject has to do with 66 people dying. Also very critical of the people in charge of the club at the time.
 
It's the Guardian, so they're playing to the left wing crowd and to hell with the facts since big, bad Rangers are traditionally bastions of everything they loathe.. A few lowlights:


Born protestant but brought up catholic
Thrown out of Rangers Accordion Band when they find out he's being brought up by catholics.
Involved in the 1961 disaster
Still loved football (and travels to World Cup and European matches, apparently) but lost interest in Rangers
"Rangers hadn’t changed. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadn’t signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years. Celtic, however, were managed by a Protestant." :rolleyes:
As a journo, was asked to attend on 2/1/71 so spent 1st half in celtic end and 2nd half near stairway 13.
When Stein equalized, lots of people turned back and tried to make their way back into Ibrox (he states this "would" have happened since he didn't see it himself)
"On the terracing, sober husbands and fathers cheered themselves hoarse. Drunken thugs bayed at the suddenly silent green end of the stadium."
"Jock Stein of Celtic was a tower of strength, along with many of his Parkhead people."
"Those fans whose families had not been affected were loath to criticise Rangers in any way, to the point where the few who did so were regarded as traitors."
Sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism...

And so forth. Best summarised as long on hyperbole, hypothesis & hypocrisy and big on bitterness, bigotry and bile. Rangers weren't blameless but he's got an obvious agenda which he sticks to like superglue.

Hatchet job from someone with an obvious chip on his shoulder trying desperately to prove his lefty credentials to his sandal-wearing friends. File under "Garbage", sub-section "Utter".
 
It's the Guardian, so they're playing to the left wing crowd and to hell with the facts since big, bad Rangers are traditionally bastions of everything they loathe.. A few lowlights:


Born protestant but brought up catholic
Thrown out of Rangers Accordion Band when they find out he's being brought up by catholics.
Involved in the 1961 disaster
Still loved football (and travels to World Cup and European matches, apparently) but lost interest in Rangers
"Rangers hadn’t changed. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadn’t signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years. Celtic, however, were managed by a Protestant." :rolleyes:
As a journo, was asked to attend on 2/1/71 so spent 1st half in celtic end and 2nd half near stairway 13.
When Stein equalized, lots of people turned back and tried to make their way back into Ibrox (he states this "would" have happened since he didn't see it himself)
"On the terracing, sober husbands and fathers cheered themselves hoarse. Drunken thugs bayed at the suddenly silent green end of the stadium."
"Jock Stein of Celtic was a tower of strength, along with many of his Parkhead people."
"Those fans whose families had not been affected were loath to criticise Rangers in any way, to the point where the few who did so were regarded as traitors."
Sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism...

And so forth. Best summarised as long on hyperbole, hypothesis & hypocrisy and big on bitterness, bigotry and bile. Rangers weren't blameless but he's got an obvious agenda which he sticks to like superglue.

Hatchet job from someone with an obvious chip on his shoulder trying desperately to prove his lefty credentials to his sandal-wearing friends. File under "Garbage", sub-section "Utter".
The lowest of the low wrote that.

The extracted last paragraph is shocking.
 
Quite scathing of all things Rangers. The article states the club exonerated itself of responsibility and fought against financially supporting the victims families.

The journalist clearly has an agenda, which is unsurprising given it’s The Guardian. In addition to the points outlined above by Rudolph, the other parts that stood out for me were:

Celtic founded to feed the poor narrative
Rangers fans aggressive and ignorant, even when stepping over dead bodies.
The random and completely unnecessary comment about Rangers now being owned by a different company.

as usual with The Guardian, it’s all about appealing to their middle class sneering champagne socialist readers.
 
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“Rangers hadn’t changed. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadn’t signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years.”

some rangers fan that guy was . He has just made this up or hasn’t a clue about the club , or in fact is a tim setting a narrative
 
It's been proven time and again the Stein equaliser had nothing to do with the crush. The Club should be complaining to IPSO about that disgusting piece.
Ah, but HE WAS THERE. He therefore knows better than the inquiries who heard evidence from everyone else. HE WAS THERE, therefore Don't Argue. He even says that people "would have" turned around to get back into the ground and then uses this hypothesis to substantiate his own supposition and present it as fact. A Guardian "journalist" of the highest order - "never mind the facts, look at my agenda"
 
The article is critical of the RC Church but it’s main focus is Rangers.

There are quite a few inaccuracies. Firstly, Rangers not signing Catholics was hardly a ‘proud boast’. The first mention in the press came via an interview with Ralph Brand after he left the club. Directors were loath to discuss it although throughout the 70s a media seeing a direct link with hooliganism was putting them under pressure on the issue.

I’d query some of the points John Hodgman makes. The disaster occurred before the 1974 HASW Act and at a time when there was nothing like the focus on health and safety there is today.

According to his account, the accident in 1961 took place when the terracing (or some of it at least) and, importantly, stairs took the form of earth and gravel held by timbers. By 1971 the terracing and stairs had been completely concreted over. One part of his 1971 account about the landings on Stairway 13 is therefore very questionable.

If there had been some means of reducing the flow to Stairway 13 (as in the relatively simple remedy of building a wall near the top) then the accident almost certainly wouldn’t have happened. However, another critical factor was the ’penning in’ of Stairway 13 by a thick wooden fence - presumably erected because the club didn’t want fans scampering down the grass slope. Whether this was present in 1961 (I heard that it wasn’t) is a key point. I believe the club thought it had made improvements but these may have turned out to have counter-effective in terms of safety.

I’d also question whether he would have had a good view of Stairway 13 when approaching from the terracing. It was very dark by that time. My understanding was that very few realised what was happening until they became caught up in the crush. The story about fans trying to get back up the stairs raises its head again although most witnesses and observers don’t accept it as credible. I walked past the foot of Stairway 13 several minutes after the final whistle and no-one behaved as if anything untoward had occurred.
 
It's the Guardian, so they're playing to the left wing crowd and to hell with the facts since big, bad Rangers are traditionally bastions of everything they loathe.. A few lowlights:


Born protestant but brought up catholic
Thrown out of Rangers Accordion Band when they find out he's being brought up by catholics.
Involved in the 1961 disaster
Still loved football (and travels to World Cup and European matches, apparently) but lost interest in Rangers
"Rangers hadn’t changed. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadn’t signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years. Celtic, however, were managed by a Protestant." :rolleyes:
As a journo, was asked to attend on 2/1/71 so spent 1st half in celtic end and 2nd half near stairway 13.
When Stein equalized, lots of people turned back and tried to make their way back into Ibrox (he states this "would" have happened since he didn't see it himself)
"On the terracing, sober husbands and fathers cheered themselves hoarse. Drunken thugs bayed at the suddenly silent green end of the stadium."
"Jock Stein of Celtic was a tower of strength, along with many of his Parkhead people."
"Those fans whose families had not been affected were loath to criticise Rangers in any way, to the point where the few who did so were regarded as traitors."
Sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism...

And so forth. Best summarised as long on hyperbole, hypothesis & hypocrisy and big on bitterness, bigotry and bile. Rangers weren't blameless but he's got an obvious agenda which he sticks to like superglue.

Hatchet job from someone with an obvious chip on his shoulder trying desperately to prove his lefty credentials to his sandal-wearing friends. File under "Garbage", sub-section "Utter".
Are these some of the statements in the article?
 
He bases his story on the findings of a single sheriff, who awarded over £20k damages to the family of one victim and delivered a "murderous judgement". He also says it was a "test case". If so, then where are all the other cases, if in fact the sheriff was correct? Strangely enough, they don't exist. It was a rogue decision.

Also:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years. It exonerated Rangers Football Club of direct blame."

Let's look at his experience, as described earlier in the piece"

"When the ball hit the back of the net, those on the dirt exit track tried to push back into the delirious crowd."

He wasn't there, he was in the stadium. In the middle of the crowd. He can't possibly know this.

"Those already halfway down the stairway 13 exit would have shuddered to 100 halts as the air split from the roar of celebration above them, grabbing each other, dancing and jumping up and down on the uneven steps. Some would have stumbled, causing others to trip over them in a mad melee of happy bodies struggling to get past each other back up to the top, just as the ref blew a long blast for time up, doubling everyone’s jubilation."

Again, he wasn't there. I've highlighted where he admits this is supposition on his part, supposition which is at odds with the inquiry findings and the evidence from countless others who were there at the time the crush began.

He then describes what he ACTUALLY saw and experienced, which was being caught up in a moving mass of bodies as they swept towards Stairway 13, and then he saw the pile of bodies midway down. What he didn't see was how it started. He saw only the result, not the cause. He even admits this earlier, yet still sticks to the story that the equalizer caused fans to try to get back into the ground with catastrophic results despite this not being supported by his own evidence! But this doesn't stop him from insisting he was right, despite having no evidence to back it up and despite admitting he couldn't possibly have seen the cause. Let's look at that paragraph again:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years"

Except "his experience", as described earlier, was nothing of the sort. He didn't see anyone trying to get back in, yet he sticks to this story. Why? Is he trying to say there was a cover-up? Why not point the finger, then? Instead, he's happy with this badly-written, poorly-researched myopic "Rangers are bad and have "The Establishment" in their pocket" drivel which is light on facts and heavy on preconceived bias and virtue signalling.
 
He bases his story on the findings of a single sheriff, who awarded over £20k damages to the family of one victim and delivered a "murderous judgement". He also says it was a "test case". If so, then where are all the other cases, if in fact the sheriff was correct? Strangely enough, they don't exist. It was a rogue decision.

Also:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years. It exonerated Rangers Football Club of direct blame."

Let's look at his experience, as described earlier in the piece"

"When the ball hit the back of the net, those on the dirt exit track tried to push back into the delirious crowd."

He wasn't there, he was in the stadium. In the middle of the crowd. He can't possibly know this.

"Those already halfway down the stairway 13 exit would have shuddered to 100 halts as the air split from the roar of celebration above them, grabbing each other, dancing and jumping up and down on the uneven steps. Some would have stumbled, causing others to trip over them in a mad melee of happy bodies struggling to get past each other back up to the top, just as the ref blew a long blast for time up, doubling everyone’s jubilation."

Again, he wasn't there. I've highlighted where he admits this is supposition on his part, supposition which is at odds with the inquiry findings and the evidence from countless others who were there at the time the crush began.

He then describes what he ACTUALLY saw and experienced, which was being caught up in a moving mass of bodies as they swept towards Stairway 13, and then he saw the pile of bodies midway down. What he didn't see was how it started. He saw only the result, not the cause. He even admits this earlier, yet still sticks to the story that the equalizer caused fans to try to get back into the ground with catastrophic results despite this not being supported by his own evidence! But this doesn't stop him from insisting he was right, despite having no evidence to back it up and despite admitting he couldn't possibly have seen the cause. Let's look at that paragraph again:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years"

Except "his experience", as described earlier, was nothing of the sort. He didn't see anyone trying to get back in, yet he sticks to this story. Why? Is he trying to say there was a cover-up? Why not point the finger, then? Instead, he's happy with this badly-written, poorly-researched myopic "Rangers are bad and have "The Establishment" in their pocket" drivel which is light on facts and heavy on preconceived bias and virtue signalling.

He talks about the stairway being ‘worn’ when that is simply not the case.
 
It's the Guardian, so they're playing to the left wing crowd and to hell with the facts since big, bad Rangers are traditionally bastions of everything they loathe.. A few lowlights:


Born protestant but brought up catholic
Thrown out of Rangers Accordion Band when they find out he's being brought up by catholics.
Involved in the 1961 disaster
Still loved football (and travels to World Cup and European matches, apparently) but lost interest in Rangers
"Rangers hadn’t changed. It was their proud boast entering the 70s that they hadn’t signed a Catholic in nearly 100 years. Celtic, however, were managed by a Protestant." :rolleyes:
As a journo, was asked to attend on 2/1/71 so spent 1st half in celtic end and 2nd half near stairway 13.
When Stein equalized, lots of people turned back and tried to make their way back into Ibrox (he states this "would" have happened since he didn't see it himself)
"On the terracing, sober husbands and fathers cheered themselves hoarse. Drunken thugs bayed at the suddenly silent green end of the stadium."
"Jock Stein of Celtic was a tower of strength, along with many of his Parkhead people."
"Those fans whose families had not been affected were loath to criticise Rangers in any way, to the point where the few who did so were regarded as traitors."
Sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism, sectarianism...

And so forth. Best summarised as long on hyperbole, hypothesis & hypocrisy and big on bitterness, bigotry and bile. Rangers weren't blameless but he's got an obvious agenda which he sticks to like superglue.

Hatchet job from someone with an obvious chip on his shoulder trying desperately to prove his lefty credentials to his sandal-wearing friends. File under "Garbage", sub-section "Utter".
He bases his story on the findings of a single sheriff, who awarded over £20k damages to the family of one victim and delivered a "murderous judgement". He also says it was a "test case". If so, then where are all the other cases, if in fact the sheriff was correct? Strangely enough, they don't exist. It was a rogue decision.

Also:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years. It exonerated Rangers Football Club of direct blame."

Let's look at his experience, as described earlier in the piece"

"When the ball hit the back of the net, those on the dirt exit track tried to push back into the delirious crowd."

He wasn't there, he was in the stadium. In the middle of the crowd. He can't possibly know this.

"Those already halfway down the stairway 13 exit would have shuddered to 100 halts as the air split from the roar of celebration above them, grabbing each other, dancing and jumping up and down on the uneven steps. Some would have stumbled, causing others to trip over them in a mad melee of happy bodies struggling to get past each other back up to the top, just as the ref blew a long blast for time up, doubling everyone’s jubilation."

Again, he wasn't there. I've highlighted where he admits this is supposition on his part, supposition which is at odds with the inquiry findings and the evidence from countless others who were there at the time the crush began.

He then describes what he ACTUALLY saw and experienced, which was being caught up in a moving mass of bodies as they swept towards Stairway 13, and then he saw the pile of bodies midway down. What he didn't see was how it started. He saw only the result, not the cause. He even admits this earlier, yet still sticks to the story that the equalizer caused fans to try to get back into the ground with catastrophic results despite this not being supported by his own evidence! But this doesn't stop him from insisting he was right, despite having no evidence to back it up and despite admitting he couldn't possibly have seen the cause. Let's look at that paragraph again:

"The verdict ignored my experience that after a last-minute equaliser, the pyramid of bodies had been caused by thousands of fans piling into those trying to get back up a worn stairway that had been a death trap for years"

Except "his experience", as described earlier, was nothing of the sort. He didn't see anyone trying to get back in, yet he sticks to this story. Why? Is he trying to say there was a cover-up? Why not point the finger, then? Instead, he's happy with this badly-written, poorly-researched myopic "Rangers are bad and have "The Establishment" in their pocket" drivel which is light on facts and heavy on preconceived bias and virtue signalling.


If either, or both, of these posts are correct this needs taken to task.
 
I'd add that I don't have any in-depth knowledge of the disaster (it happened 14 months before I was born) and I'm sure there are others (such as deedle) who have far more knowledge than me of what the stadium was like at the time and can give an accurate report of the stadium, fan behaviour in general and the events of the day itself. I'm simply highlighting the inaccuracies and contradictions in his article. I'm also not interested in giving the Rangers board a clean bill of health either; I personally think they could and should have done more to make changes before that terrible day based on what had happened in the decade previously - how much more is difficult to say since I wasn't around at the time and can only look back with the benefit of hindsight. But that is a million miles from this article and the opinion of the hack behind it.
 
Just finished reading. It's one of those that has enough personal anecdotes and apocryphal tales to colour an article that could be genuinely interesting.

The conduct of the club in the years following the disaster is worthy of analysis. We were caught in the middle ground of wanting to help and legal advice to protect the club. The financial realities of wanting to fix the problem and being able to, supporting those impacted and being able to were laid bare. Did the club cover itself in glory? Sadly not, but those who wanted change fought hard as seen by the work over a decade to prepare and then redevelop Ibrox into a blueprint for the modern football stadium. He doesn't tell that story though, more focusing on a simplistic lack of care for the families rather than diving into the complexities and motivations of the time.

And as others have noted, he lets himself down by framing the whole article in the religious divide and by making some assumptions about 1961 and a thinly veiled implication that Rangers were alone in not addressing issues like this.
 
. Nevermind, tried another link but doesn't seem to be working when I post here. If you google Rangers the guardian it's their first news story on google.
 
Stand by for next week's 4-page special: "How Celtic Facilitated a Paedophile Ring for 40yrs, then Subsequently Fought Tooth and Nail to Deny or Even Acknowledge that it Ever Occurred".

Don't hold your breath waiting for that one folks.
Something like this, you mean?

 
It just seems every year someone with their agenda wants to be very selective in their reporting in an effort to discredit us, that mans upbringing had no bearing on the Ibrox disaster, nor did any football rivalry sectarian or otherwise. I’ve not read all of the article, but I’ve read enough and I’ve read and understand what happened and the aftermath, it was way before my time.

Edit: I would hope given the 50th anniversary we as a club call this out.
 
I'd add that I don't have any in-depth knowledge of the disaster (it happened 14 months before I was born) and I'm sure there are others (such as deedle) who have far more knowledge than me of what the stadium was like at the time and can give an accurate report of the stadium, fan behaviour in general and the events of the day itself. I'm simply highlighting the inaccuracies and contradictions in his article. I'm also not interested in giving the Rangers board a clean bill of health either; I personally think they could and should have done more to make changes before that terrible day based on what had happened in the decade previously - how much more is difficult to say since I wasn't around at the time and can only look back with the benefit of hindsight. But that is a million miles from this article and the opinion of the hack behind it.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

Most grounds back then were potential death-traps. The Ibrox Disaster occurred because of the combination of a large crowd and the nature of Stairway 13 - it was relatively steep, there was no means of filtering the flow of supporters and no means of escape.

If the club had repeated warnings then it would probably have been held culpable but I don’t believe that to be the case.


This article has strayed over the line between reasonable criticism and perspective (as in Ibrox certainly not being the last ever major disaster at a U.K. football ground and failure to mention the radical rebuilding that took place within a few years) into straightforward Rangers-bashing.
 
It's articles like this work of mentally challenged fiction, which makes me quite comfortable with an outright ban in Scottish media at Ibrox. We allow these people into our stadium? Beggars belief. Yes ,come in, and have tea, coffee,pies, and the best seats in the house. Watch the games, then go and right articles of such complete nonsense, that you wonder where they received their media apprenticeship. With the Hag at Cardonald college. Vermin.
 
Something like this, you mean?

Ahhh, good Lord, I stand well and truly corrected. Although I would hazard a guess that both articles weren't written by the same vile bag of cat's piss that wrote the Ibrox Disaster fabrication?
 
All the grounds in that era were potential death traps.
I remember when I started going to football from 1980 that egress from the game was ,to put it mildly, uncomfortable and disturbing.
Leaving parkhead after the game we were always met with a horrendous crush as we squeezed along narrow gangways leading to the steep steps out of the ground.
Hampden was a filthy place with seas of mud leading to the turnstiles and rotting railway sleepers for terracing.
Even in the late 80's you still had the crush at the back of the terracing at easter road as you squeezed down a steep hill to the exits.
Tannadice was a nightmare with the ultra, ultra steep terracing and leaving from the stands was a nightmare as you tried to squeeze your way out of narrow corridors under their ramshackle stand.
Finally, I can never forget the nightmare of trying to get out of Brockville as you squeezed out of narrow exits in the pitch black.
 
Quite scathing of all things Rangers. The article states the club exonerated itself of responsibility and fought against financially supporting the victims families.

The journalist clearly has an agenda, which is unsurprising given it’s The Guardian. In addition to the points outlined above by Rudolph, the other parts that stood out for me were:

Celtic founded to feed the poor narrative
Rangers fans aggressive and ignorant, even when stepping over dead bodies.
The random and completely unnecessary comment about Rangers now being owned by a different company.

as usual with The Guardian, it’s all about appealing to their middle class sneering champagne socialist readers.
The insurance company entered negotiations with the families and the matter was settled out of court.
 
I seem to recall one of their senior guys has links to mad phill.
Correct. Barry Glendenning. A hateful bigot and terrorist sympathiser.
No, wrong guy.

I think the individual Gogso refers to is Roy Greenslade. A died in the wool provo and Rangers hater with previous for hatchet jobs on us. Think he's an acquaintance of Gorrilabrain (maybe even neighbours??)
 
Ahhh, good Lord, I stand well and truly corrected. Although I would hazard a guess that both articles weren't written by the same vile bag of cat's piss that wrote the Ibrox Disaster fabrication?
No mate, Henry McDonald wrote the Boys Club piece. I believe the story was also featured on their podcast last week. I don't think it'd be unfair to assume Hollicom (or similar) have 'demanded' the Ibrox Disaster hatchet job to even things up, I hope I'm wrong though as we expect better standards from the broadsheets in this country.
 
I tend to avoid newspaper comments sections at the best of times, but Guardian comments on any story to do with the Rangers are an utter shambles
 
All the grounds in that era were potential death traps.
I remember when I started going to football from 1980 that egress from the game was ,to put it mildly, uncomfortable and disturbing.
Leaving parkhead after the game we were always met with a horrendous crush as we squeezed along narrow gangways leading to the steep steps out of the ground.
Hampden was a filthy place with seas of mud leading to the turnstiles and rotting railway sleepers for terracing.
Even in the late 80's you still had the crush at the back of the terracing at easter road as you squeezed down a steep hill to the exits.
Tannadice was a nightmare with the ultra, ultra steep terracing and leaving from the stands was a nightmare as you tried to squeeze your way out of narrow corridors under their ramshackle stand.
Finally, I can never forget the nightmare of trying to get out of Brockville as you squeezed out of narrow exits in the pitch black.
I remember all of those places well. So many times being carried along with the feet off the ground for some distance.

As a wee kid going along to Ibrox in the 60’s I had it drummed into me by my dad that if I was caught up in a crush like that, I was to protect my chest first and foremost.

It was great advice and although unlikely to be needed now in the UK, it was heeded again a few years ago while exiting a game in Makassar where you can relive the old crushes and hooliganism almost on a fortnightly basis.
 
For a start, the stairway had been concreted by 1971.

Nobody knew until the inquiry exactly what had caused it, folk (the media) just assumed supporters must have rushed back after the equaliser, but there were witnesses who actually saw what happened.

What exactly triggered the sudden and fatal accident that followed, no one is sure. Early suggestions were that the Rangers fans who had made their way out of the ground when Johnstone scored the likely 89th minute winner for Celtic had tried to rush back up the stairway when they heard the cheers for Stein’s equaliser moments later, meeting those who were exiting, and causing the crush on the stairway. However, this has been refuted by witnesses who were present on stairway 13 at the time of the deadly surge and by corroborating evidence presented at the subsequent inquiry which showed that everyone was headed in the same direction at the time of the tragedy. Others who were there that day say they saw someone – possibly a young boy – falling from a man’s shoulders and tumbling over the heads of the tightly-packed spectators as they descended the stairs, thus causing a chain reaction of people being pushed forward.
 
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