How Rangers came to call Ibrox home

Itinerant in their early years, the club had left its embryonic home at Fleshers Haugh on Glasgow Green in 1875 for a brief dalliance with Burnbank on Great Western Road before settling at Kinning Park in 1876.

That self-contained ground had been vacated by Clydesdale Cricket Club and it was whilst there that the club reached two Scottish Cup finals, losing controversially in both. By then, they had attracted a fervent, vociferous support. However, the ground was not their own and they had to vacate when a sawmill had designs on expansion into their area.

Faced with this challenge, Rangers established a new fields committee who set about the task of finding a ground suitable for this aspiring club. Secretary Walter Crichton favoured some fields around Ibrox that were of interest.

The committee recognised that there would be much growth in the population and that the transport network was excellent. Ibrox Station had opened nearby and the Glasgow and Ibrox Tramway had also just begun operations. Plans were also afoot for the Glasgow District Subway. One location west of Copland Road looked ideal and negotiations were concluded to lease the land from the landowners, the Hinshelwood Trust. Plans were then put in place for the new home which would be called Ibrox Park.

Rangers opened their ground amongst much pomp and ceremony on 20 August 1887 with a match against the English “Invincibles”, Preston North End. An 8-1 reverse was not to the liking of the huge crowd, estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 but all were impressed by the facilities of the new ground. As crowds increased, the diversity of the visitors did too and Buffalo Bill Cody, visiting the city with his famous Wild West Show, took in a Glasgow Cup tie in 1891.

However, by the end of the century, Rangers found themselves homeless once again with a notice to vacate. This time the Trust threw the club a lifeline of land lying just west of their ground. Construction of a new stadium which would be designed by Archibald Leitch, would be costly, especially since the club sought a commodious ground capable of accommodating 85,000 fans. It would include a 6,000 all-seater grandstand.

Rangers was a visionary club and besides seeing the growing interest in football, they had eyes on the ground’s use for lucrative international matches and cup finals. However, a share issue would be required to fund their “gigantic” stadium which would ultimately be called New Ibrox Park. The club duly incorporated in 1899, creating Rangers Football Club Limited, with a share capital of £12,000, the estimated cost of the work. In fact, the work was to eventually cost much more.

A new stand was built on the south side, a reconstructed covering was added to the north terracing and the ground was finished off with what was described as “a palatial pavilion”, erected in the southeast corner. Inside were the dressing rooms, a gymnasium, administrative rooms, and seating for 1,000.

There was also an ash cycling/athletics track which would be ideal for the continuation of the already successful Rangers Sports which began at Kinning Park in 1881 and would continue until 1962. The track would eventually see many of the world’s greatest athletes, including Alfie Shrubb, Sidney Wooderson, Jack Lovelock, Paavo Nurmi and Eric Liddell whose life featured in the movie “Chariots of Fire”.

The ground was opened on 30 December 1899 with a 3-1 win over Heart of Midlothian. It was indeed impressive and one newspaper columnist remarked that it was “without doubt, the finest football arena in existence”. Rangers’ desire to host an international fixture was fulfilled on 5 April 1902 when the club was granted the prestigious Scotland v England match. It was an event that was to cast a long shadow over the club for many years, when early in the match, part of the west terracing collapsed, resulting in the death of 25 people and injury to 517.

It seemed that everything the club had worked to achieve had been decimated as the timber supports cracked and failed, plunging hundreds of bodies to the ground. No one was found culpable for the accident, although the builder came under focus for the quality and type of timber used in the construction. The disaster would hasten the widespread adoption of earth bunds and the removal of the timber lattice terracing structures. Not for the first time would a disaster at Ibrox lead to radical changes in stadium design throughout the UK.

In time, Rangers would recover and improvements to Ibrox would renew pride in the stadium. The onset of the First World War saw the ground used as an army recruitment centre and in 1917, it saw the first of many royal visits when it was host to an investiture by King George V, the first held in Scotland in more than 300 years.

By 1928, and with Rangers the pre-eminent club in the land, a new grandstand emerged on Edmiston Drive at a cost of £95,000, with 1,018,000 red bricks from Wales used in the construction and two miles of electric cabling. Again, designed by Leitch, It would provide 19 rows of “tip-up” seating for 10,500 people. Internally, the finishes were exquisite in oak panelling with the famous Marble Staircase leading from the main hallway with its twin pillars.

The famous marble staircase at Ibrox

Manager Bill Struth countered those who felt the building was too ostentatious and grandiose for a football stadium by stating quite prophetically that it would be there long after the others had gone. Indeed, the retention of the structure in all its glory is guaranteed with its architectural category B listing. The stand was officially opened, by the Lord Provost, Sir David Mason OBE, on 1 January 1929, before the New Year’s Day match against Celtic.

The facilities were universally celebrated, leading one correspondent to comment that “everything that mere man can think of has been brought in by the Ibrox people to make their administrative and training block the most sumptuous thing extant”.

These were exciting times for Rangers and Ibrox was proud to once again host royalty when King George VI opened the Empire Exhibition in a formal ceremony at the ground. Just a few months later, on 2 January 1939, a record crowd of 118,567 gathered inside Ibrox for the Ne’erday Old Firm clash. The attendance has never been exceeded for a league match in the United Kingdom. However, whilst the ground regularly saw crowds push into six figures, disaster was to befall Rangers once again on 2 January 1971 when 66 lost their lives on the fateful stairway 13.

The tragedy manifested radical changes to the ground and stimulated fresh approaches to crowd safety, driven by guidance in the Wheatley Report (1971). The club resolved to transform the ground into one that would provide safety and comfort for all. The sweeping terraces were removed to be replaced by new stands on three sides and by the mid-90s, the ground was allseated. By then, it included a further tier above the main stand, known as the Club Deck, constructed at a cost of £20 million.

The reconstruction of Ibrox facilitated the incorporation of many suites for corporate hospitality as football moved into a new commercial era. Today, almost 2,000 meals are regularly served to hospitality guests joining the 45,000 season-ticket holders and others who regularly push the total crowd to its 50,817 capacity.

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Although primarily a football ground, Ibrox has been used for a multitude of events over the years, including speeches by Winston Churchill (1949) and evangelical leader Billy Graham (1955) and it has hosted a variety of sports contests including rugby, boxing, wrestling, tennis and even golf displays. In showbiz, it has also provided a stage for some of the top entertainers, led by Frank Sinatra in 1990 and in June this year, it will welcome Harry Styles for a concert.

The 150-year history of Rangers has been a rich tapestry which has seen both triumph and disaster. However, at its centre, the ground has evolved as a magnificent stadium fulfilling all the aspirations of these visionaries which first set their eyes on the new fields at Ibrox, all these years ago. If Rangers is more than a club to its fans, the famous Ibrox Stadium is certainly more than a football ground.

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Featuring exclusive new interviews with club legends, in-depth reviews of the biggest matches the club has ever had, and stories you probably won’t have heard before from the club’s long history, this is a magazine that Rangers fans will want to keep forever.

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