The day disaster halted big game
Young fan died and dozens injured in crush
Tomorrow marks 60 years to the day a wall collapsed at Shawfield Stadium killing a young boy and injuring dozens of other fans.
More than 26,000 spectators packed into the Rutherglen ground on December 14, 1957, when Clyde played Celtic.
But the match had barely got into its rhythm when Celtic scored inside six minutes. Disaster struck and a section of the crowd swayed causing a 4-foot high barricade wall to collapse.
A 12-year-old boy from Bridgeton, James Ryan, was fatally crushed. Another 48 were hurt and 13 were kept in hospital after suffering serious wounds.
The Reformer’s edition at the time reported on how “spare goalposts, wooden props and crowbars were used immediately to get at the trapped boys”.
The report went on to state: “For 20 pathetic minutes youngsters, freed from the wreckage of the wall, were carried across the pitch in the arms of players, spectators and on stretchers by ambulance men.
“Several had broken limbs. All suffered crushing injuries, bruises, minor cuts and shock. Many had their boots and stockings torn from their feet.
“Some were crying but many smiled bravely as they were hurried to the tearoom below the stand which had been turned into a casualty station.”
James Ryan was a keen Clyde supporter. His uncle James McLaren had taken him to the match and said afterwards he had “put him on the wall for his own safety as the crowd were crushing him against it”.
Eleven ambulances ran a shuttle service to nearby hospitals and battled the busy Christmas traffic as the match restarted 20 minutes after the disaster.
Amongst those injured were two Rutherglen schoolboys, Thomas Sutherland, 10, from Farme Cross, and Spittal lad James Lang, 15.
Rutherglen resident Ronnie Dickie, 88, remembers standing at the far end of the ground with his fellow Clyde supporters as he watched the tragic events unfold.
He said: “There was an incident on the park, the crowd pressed and the wall collapsed.
“An alarm went off but we didn’t really know what was going on. I was standing behind the goals, quite far away from it.
“Everyone came on to the park. I remember Jock Stein, the Celtic manager, carrying people and players carrying the injured in and out of the press. I was 28 at the time, standing at the far end, I’d usually stand in the middle, where the wall collapsed, but because we were playing Celtic, the place was full.
“There was large crowds in those days. Even Clyde and Motherwell would attract 10,000 so imagine what it was like when Rangers and Celtic came to play.
“There was no tickets either, the more money that came through the turnstiles the better.”
A fatal accident inquiry ruled that the wall had in fact been well built and the accident was blamed on unruly persons in the crowd.
They claimed the fans had repeatedly been rushing forward irresponsibly. There was an absence of any crush barriers in that area of the terracing which would have lessened the forward pressure exerted.
The crowd pressed and the wall collapsed