Today’s Temporarily Inconvenient Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
On Saturday April 5, 1902 Scotland met England for a football international at Ibrox in Glasgow. That was the 27th such meeting and the first with only professional players. Ibrox football ground had been put in order by Rangers Football Club in 1899 at a cost of about £20,000. The total crowd at the 1902 international was said to be just in excess of 68,000. The match had not been in progress for long when, shortly before 4 pm, as fans shifted and swayed to follow a charge along the flanks, part of the western terracing gave way. The part that collapsed was near to the top of the terracing. In the ensuing panic, people at the lower edge of the terracing moved out onto the surrounding track and then the playing pitch and this led to a temporary stoppage of the game, lasting about 20 minutes. There were 25 deaths as a result of the accident. The number of people injured was in excess of 500, although the precise total is uncertain. Later in 1902 the contractor who built the western terracing two years before the accident was prosecuted and acquitted.
Culled from: The Sports Historian
The strangest part of the story? Per John Marr’s “Murder Can Be Fun” zine (Issue #18), as soon as most of the dead and injured were removed, the action resumed, and the damaged section of the terrace even filled up again! As anthropologist Desmond Morris said in his discussion of this tragedy, “It takes more than death and disaster to put the Soccer Tribesman off his game.”
It would not be the last tragedy at Ibrox.