AS Bobby Pollock walked through his front door on the night of January 2, 1971, his mother ran out to greet him.
“Thank goodness you’re home,” she gasped. “Phone your grandfather – something’s happened at Ibrox….”
Bobby, from Cardonald, was 15 and a Rangers fan like his grandad Robert.
“It was my first Old Firm game, and I’d gone with my pals,” says Bobby. “I’d had a bit of a fight with my parents about it. But in the end they let me go.
“We’d left about five minutes after the final whistle, and headed for Stairway 13 which was closest to us. At the last minute we turned back – it’s a decision that probably saved our lives.”
On the way home, the boys heard sirens as, unbeknownst to them, ambulances rushed to the stadium.
“We just thought there had been some trouble after the game,” says Bobby. “It was only when I got home, and called my grandad, that he told me people had been crushed, and some had died.
“I couldn’t believe it. How could it be possible? It took a long time to sink in.”
David Adams was eight years old when his dad, George, lost his life in the Ibrox Disaster – one of 66 supporters killed in a crush after a league match with Celtic. All this week, the Glasgow Times is telling the stories of relatives, fans, players and first aiders as Rangers prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the tragedy this weekend.
“I remember my mum starting to panic when my dad didn’t come home after the game,” recalls David, from Faifley. “I was at my neighbour’s house, and his dad went out – I didn’t know it at the time, but he went to identify the body. When they came back, I watched them go in to my house and all I heard was this horrible wailing sound…I rushed home and my mum was there, crying and in an awful state.”
He pauses. “It’s hard thinking about that even now.”
David’s mum, Agnes, was going through treatment for breast cancer at the time.
“She was devastated – she didn’t think she was going to make it, and she had already made plans to send me and my three siblings to our aunties,” he explains. “But she did make it. She was a very strong woman, but that night, when she lost my dad – I will never forget it.”
George, a machine engineer for Singer’s, was 42 and a ‘real family man,’ says his son.
“He was a big Rangers fan and usually took either my brother or I to the home games with him,” explains David.
“For some reason, that Saturday he didn’t take either of us.”
George and his friends Charles Dougan and John Gardiner were commemorated with a special plaque donated by Faifley Community Council and installed outside the pub where they would meet to get on the supporters’ bus.
“No-one should go to a football match and not come home,” says David. “This didn’t just affect my family or community, it affected the whole city, the whole country.
“For many of us, things were never the same again.”
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