NEVER FORGOTTEN
Fergie and Walter on the tragedy that still pains a club and country
SIR ALEX FERGUSON and Walter Smith will today quietly pay their respects to the victims of the Ibrox disaster on the 50th anniversary and continue to feel fortunate their lives were not devastated by it.
Smith and his brother Ian were caught up in the crush on Stairway 13 at the end of the Old Firm match on January 2, 1971 but somehow managed to escape.
Ferguson and his family feared they had lost his brother Martin when he failed to return home, having watched the match from the Copland Road terracing, only to be reunited after an agonising wait.
Fergie, who had left Rangers 15 months before, played against his old side the day before the disaster then rushed to catch the derby action when Falkirk’s game was called off.
He said: “Jock Wallace rested about six or seven players because he knew the Celtic game with Clyde was being called off, so therere were quite a lot of young playerslayers in the Rangers side and we won 3-1.
“Then our gamee on the 2nd with Airdrie was called off so I dashed over to Ibrox with Andy ndy Roxburgh, who was my fellow centreeforward at Falkirk. k. We ran in the front t door and I saw Old Bob the commissionaire who managed to get me a couplec of tickets. We were thinkingthin about leaving near ththe end wwhen Jimmy Johnstonetone Johnst scoredsco and then Colin Stein equalised. eq “AnAndnd as soons as that happenedpened happ wew dashed out to getg to tthe car park acrossaccross the road, trying to beatbea the crowd. “When I got homeh my mother and father were so worried because Martin hadn’t come back and he was there in that area of the ground.
“It turned out he had left early, gone to the Rolls Royce Club and didn’t know anything about it. It was hours later he eventually turned up so it was a bit fraught.
“One of the victims was a young girl from Falkirk. Willie
Thornton asked me if I’d go to the funeral and I did so along with some of the other Falkirk players. A lot of the ex-players did great duties because there were so many funerals.”
Smith, who wasn’t playing for Dundee United over the holiday period, only realised what had happened when the local supporters’ bus he was on got back to Carmyle “because there were so many people waiting for us”. Remarkably, he was back at Ibrox a couple of weeks later, with Dundee United the first visitors on January 16.
The former Rangers manager said: “I can’t remember too much about the game but as you can imagine the atmosphere was so subdued and quiet.
“It was just a disastrous day for everyone. We were the lucky ones.”