Going for 55: Rangers' Journey Back to the Top of Scottish Football by Christopher Jack

Author:Christopher Jack [Jack, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913538606
Google: hwtXzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Birlinn, Limited
Published: 2021-07-15T23:22:40.681979+00:00

EIGHT

IT IS said that football is the most important of the least important things in life. It matters, of course it does, but only in context and perspective. A reminder of that can often be welcome and useful and one is provided every January for Rangers supporters as they commemorate Absent Friends.

The last decade has undoubtedly been tumultuous and harrowing for fans to live through but they are not the darkest times in their club’s history. Rangers have suffered on and off the park but their trials and tribulations in a sporting and business sense are incomparable to the weeks that followed the Ibrox Disaster and the loss felt 50 years on puts recent hardships in an alternative light. It is easy to get caught up in the emotion and lexicon of the game, but there must always be a reminder of the true tragedies that unfold around us and that has been felt as deeply as ever during a pandemic that would change and take too many lives.

The build-up to the Old Firm fixture in January was typically feverish from press and punters alike and the significance of the contest in terms of the title race could not be downplayed. Yet there was a more sombre tone to the coverage in the days ahead of the New Year meeting and a very different feeling around Ibrox in the hours before kick-off.

The absence of supporters played a part in that, of course. On a crisp morning in Glasgow as the winter sun bathed the iconic red brick in a warming glow, there was no sense of excitement or tension in the air and the crowds that gathered were there to pay their respects rather than support their team. An occasion that was so important to Rangers’ future was put into context by its past.

It was on that day in 1971 that 66 supporters lost their lives in the Ibrox Disaster following a crush on Stairway 13. A 1-1 Old Firm fixture was nondescript as Colin Stein equalised in the final seconds after Jimmy Johnstone looked to have won it for Celtic. Had fate not played its hand, the derby draw would have been lost in the mists of time.

Instead, the fog that enveloped Ibrox as darkness fell would be the backdrop to events on a scale that hadn’t been seen before in British football. Until the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989, the accident on Stairway 13 was the worst loss of life in a stadium on these shores.

The thought that anyone could go to a football match and not return home is difficult to comprehend, especially today given the safety of our stadia and the security operations that are in place whether the crowd is 500 or 50,000. The game can provide so many moments of sheer adulation but those of tragedy resonate even more strongly and unite supporters no matter the colour of their scarves.

The recollections of Ibrox, Heysel and Hillsborough are very different for Derek Pickup. He will never forget, though, and he remembers to this day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.