It was the afternoon of the Old Firm game, Rangers v Celtic at Ibrox, Saturday January 2 1971.
The match was heading for a 0-0 draw when Jimmy Johnstone broke the deadlock to give Celtic the lead in the 89th minute. Then, with just seconds left on the clock, Colin Stein snatched a dramatic equaliser for Rangers.
The blue section of the 80,000 all-ticket crowd went wild with delight. The green was thrown into despair.
Two goals in a minute. What a finish! Yet, unseen amid this sea of emotions, a disaster was beginning to unfold at the Rangers end of the ground over on the East terrace at Staircase 13. As the fans swayed away from the heaving mass, some stumbled halfway down the steep steps. Those around didn’t see them fall and continued their descent.
Suddenly a tidal wave of fans was engulfed in a terrifying crush. Steel barriers crumpled under the impact.
When the carnage cleared, 66 people had lost their lives and more than 140 lay injured. Among the dead were 31 teenagers. The youngest victim was a boy of nine, Nigel Pickup, who had travelled to the game from Liverpool. One woman was among the fatalities. Margaret Ferguson, an 18-year-old from Maddiston near Falkirk, had made a doll for the baby daughter of Rangers centre-forward Stein – the man who scored the late equaliser – and had delivered it to his home just before Christmas. Five schoolboy pals, four of whom lived in the same street, had gone to the game together from the small town of Markinch in Fife. The five, all members of Glenrothes Rangers Supporters Club, never returned.
There were so many harrowing tales. Eye-witness John Dawson was among the injured. He said: “When the barrier gave way I was carried along a passageway for 20 yards with three people on top of me and at least three underneath.”
Another survivor of Staircase 13 was Robert Black. He said: “There was so much pressure from behind me that I was tossed down on top of others. People were on the ground and I was tossed over them. I was just carried forward by the surge.” Both sides of the Old Firm put aside their rivalries and came together to play a game to raise funds for the victims’ families. A combined Rangers and Celtic team took on a Scotland XI at Hampden watched by 81,405 fans.
The club and their fans were in mourning. It was the blackest day in the history of Scottish football.
On the 30th anniversary of the tragedy a special service was held at Ibrox and a bronze statue of John Greig was unveiled on top of a memorial to those who had been killed. Every year at the home game closest to the anniversary, the club pays its respects to those lost by laying a special wreath at the Memorial which was built in honour of those who died and other victims at the stadium in previous years.
The list of the fans that lost their lives (66):
Bryan Todd
Robert McAdam
Peter Wright
John Gardiner
Richard Bark
William Thomson Summerhill
George Adams
John Neill
James Trainer
Richard Douglas Morrison
James Whyte Rae
David Douglas McGee
Robert Colquhoun Mulholland
David Ronald Paton
George McFarlane Irwin
Ian Frew
John Crawford
Brian Hutchison
Duncan McIsaac McBrearty
Charles John Griffiths Livingstone
Adam Henderson
Richard McLeay
David Cummings Duff
David Fraser McPherson
Robert Lockerbie Rae
Robert Campbell Grant
John McNeil McLeay
David Anderson
John Buchanan
John McInnes Semple
John Jeffrey
Robert Maxwell
Matthew Reid
Alexander McIntyre
Peter Gilchrist Farries
Thomas Melville
John James McGovern
George Wilson
Robert Charles Cairns
Hugh McGregor Addie
James Yuille Mair
Margaret Oliver Ferguson
Robert Turner Carrigan
George Alexander Smith
Walter Robert Raeburn
Andrew Jackson Lindsay
Charles Dougan
William Mason Philip
Russell Morgan
Peter Gordon Easton
George Crockett Findlay
Charles Stirling
Thomas Dickson
James Graham Gray
Thomas McRobbie
Ian Scott Hunter
Nigel Patrick Pickup
Russell Malcolm
Alexander Paterson Orr
Thomas Walker Stirling
James William Sibbald
Frankie Dover
Walter Shields
Thomas Grant
William Duncan Shaw
Donald Robert Sutherland
