Want to see more Football disasters? Let me know This weeks outro song: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b66XhJuir7nZho0.html

I find crushes one of the most terrifying types of disater because they can spring up so quickly and seem fairly inoccuous until they are deadly. There is no clear external danger to life such as a fire, explosion, debris, natural disaster ect, you could quite feasibly be stood mere feet away from people dying while being in no danger yourself, it's scary

As a small child, I remember my mom insisting we wait ~10 minutes before leaving American Football games because of crushes - I didn't understand it at the time, but I certainly do now.

Crowds are so deceptively safe, as evidenced by the tragedy on Halloween in S. Korea. I love the varied topics you cover

When you hear "a crowd crush is a common occurrence" about a place, that's a terrifying sign of neglect on part of the authorities and a huge red flag never to go anywhere near that place.

My grandad was at this exact game and he would usually exit via stairway 13 but thankfully noticed how busy it was and went else where. Had no clue what happened until he heard it on the radio when he got home. No one should go to the football and not return home R.I.P to the 66 we will never forget

I found that picture of the bent railings to be the most captivating and sobering bit. It can be hard to appreciate just how much a crowd of people weighs without actually doing the math, but one can imagine being pinned with enough force to mangle that piping and it makes for some quality nightmare fuel.

i have never been in a crowd that was close to a disaster like this. But i had moments where i realised that i am no longer in control of my own movement. As someone who doesnt like big crowds these have been nerve wrecking moments. I cant imagine the horror of those people involved. Thats not like being hit by a car where you are fine up until the moment everything goes wrong - this is a rather slow process where you have plenty of time to think and go through the pure helplessness before any injury occurs. Such a dreadful way to die. RIP

If you're going to large events, DO NOT be in a rush to leave. Stay put and sober up for a while. You're not going to get out any quicker by standing in a line with 10K+ people. Just hang out and let the crowd thin. I've been to many large events and never come close to this stuff. Be patient. It could save your life.

Here we go. That stairway at Ibrox was a perennial problem at the end of games where there was a big crowd. Myself & an old friend were caught in a crush going down that very stairway, we were probably 16 or 17years old at the time & very fit & strong, we were both pushed against that barrier with such a pressure from the crowd that we had to physically push back to prevent ourselves from being crushed against these railings, we could not let go & to illustrate how bad it was I watched my Rangers scarf slip away & l could not take my hands off the rail as I would have been in real trouble, as we approached the base of the stairway we witnessed around 30+ individuals lying against the wall with a variety of injuries, some were bleeding. In retrospect that was a scary few minutes descending Stairway 13. After that incident we always held back until the crowd thinned. My friend lost one or 2 of his shoes as well. Thinking back it is sobering to think that if someone had fallen it may have turned out differently, it wasn’t so bad losing that scarf.

There are lots of harrowing stories around the Ibrox disaster. Being the early 1970s there were no mobile phones and very little TV coverage, so families waiting at home for the return of their loved ones were either unaware or received no news, meaning that they sat for hours just waiting and waiting for a Dad, son or brother who wasn't coming home. Five teenage victims, all friends, came from one tiny village in Fife named Markinch - it's an awful story within a story, which has still left a mark on the village 51 years later. RIP the 66 victims.

There are a lot of disaster style channels but none of them deliver the consistent, respectful, and highly informative content you do. Keep it up

I remember watching a documentary on this disaster which interviewed some of the players. They were still broken up about it 40+ years later. They also mentioned how they tried to get at least one or two players at each funeral to show their support, which I thought was very sweet of them.

my grandpa was at this match. thankfully he drove so wasnt involved. heard about it on the radio in the car home - cant imagine how worried my grandma was

I was in a dance club once where there was a crush on the dance floor. As soon as I started feeling like breathing might become a problem I escaped. I have never felt anything like that before or since, it was terrifying. Nobody got hurt but it was so fast and the crowd wasn't even that large. But, be careful in crowds because crushes can happen in the most unexpected places. Better to be patient and wait in your seats until the crowd clears.

Whenever I hear about events and people dying from the crush. Reminds me when I was a kid in 1979. My older brother wanted to go to The Who concert in Cincinnati. I'm still glad mom did not let my brother go. That's when a group of people were killed by the crush. I think there were no seating arrangements. The first people in the coliseum would get front row stage. The band was warming up and the fans thought the concert started. So everybody near any open door rushed into the coliseum at one time.

Crush/trampling events are my biggest fear in life. When I was a kid I saw footage of the disaster at The Who concert and it freaked me out. I’ve been to hundreds if not over a thousand concerts (worked security for several years at concerts and music festivals). I have ALWAYS thought about the event of a crush at every concert I’ve been to and think about an exit just in case. Of course, planning does not guarantee in any way escaping a crush. The recent crush in South Korea reignited my always present fear of large crowd issues. Terrifying.

If you ever fall in a crowd, try to roll onto your side and curl up into a ball with your arms over your face and head. It's a lot harder to compress your chest from the sides, and your hands protect your head from being stepped on. It isn't guaranteed to save you, but it gives your a better chance than laying flat

My dad and Grampa were both at this game. My dad was there as a first aider with St Andrew’s Ambulance and his dad there as a spectator. Because of how busy it was leaving Ibrox they both would travel home separately. My poor Gran heard about it from a bus driver and was worried sick until they both got home,both knowing nothing about what had happened. One of the changes implemented because of this disaster was that the first aides were to remain in the stadium until all the spectators had left.

In 1989, I was in a bit of a crush at the Amiga '89 expo in Cologne, Germany. This was a home computer that was very popular at the time, so they organised an expo. It proved much more popular than expected, so when I arrived first thing (by train from the Netherlands, no less), there was a bit of a crowd waiting for the ticket sale points to open. When they did, everybody started pushing. But there were fences at the front. Now I'm not exactly a short guy at 1.85m/6'1", but there is absolutely nothing you can do. You just get pushed, and things get very tight. In the end, nothing serious happened, and nobody got injured. The people at the front got seriously pressed against, though. These things keep happening - as seem recently in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea. And it seems that we never learn.

I think that, if I had lived through being in a crush like that, I'd hate crowds even more than I currently do. RIP to the 66, and I hope others who survived were able to pick up the pieces and move forward with their lives. This was supposed to be a good time at the pitch; it wasn't supposed to be a tragedy waiting to strike.

I have some Swedish cases I would love for you to cover; 1. The tjörnbridge catastrophe 2. The tram accident in Gothenburg 3. The landslide in Tuve 4. The discotheque fire in Gothenburg If you'd need translations and such I would be happy to help

I always wait until the end of the video. So i know what the weather was like in London.

Respect to the victims and family of those who died and those affected by this tragedy. 💙💚 From a Celtic fan.

Excellent and factual video of what happened. I was over from Dublin to see the match but in the main stand enclosure at the other (Celtic) end. At the end of the match, my friends and I went to the flat of a Rangers-supporting pal on Copland Road to discuss what had been a dull game that we felt Celtic had thrown away. Almost an hour after the match, a friend of his family came in and told us there had been an accident at Stairway 13. She said she'd heard there were two people dead. My best pal and I immediately started to walk quickly to his home at Govan Cross, where our wives and my first baby were spending the afternoon with his mother. No cell phones in those days. As we walked, people rushing to the scene told us first there were five dead, then six, then 10. By the time we reached his home, with the waiting women going frantic with worry, the toll had reached 14. While waiting on a taxi, we heard on the TV the toll was now 40. In the taxi, the driver told us he had heard it was now over 60. The final toll was 66 poor souls. I will never, ever forget that night. The sound of screaming ambulances racing through the mist on that walk in darkened streets remains with me yet. 🇮🇪

my dad's older cousin was at the game that day, he went off to the pub after the game and had absolutely no idea that the disaster had even happened. he got an absolute bollocking from his mother by the time he got home late that night. she was so worried and had no idea if he was ok all that time

I'm glad you gave this terrible day some exposure as it is always overshadowed by the Hillsborough disaster.

I have always hated crowds because of stuff like this, as well as what happens when riot police are around and things get kinetic. When I was a kid we used to horse around in the yard playing "Pileup", where we would pick out one of us and everyone jumps on top of him (as boys it takes us a while to grow a functioning brain lol). Having been at the bottom of that stack of people, unable to breath or even call for help, feeling the panic, was enough to teach me to avoid situations like the one in this video.

I started going to Ibrox with my father in 1973 and stairway 13 was our usual exit to the then named Copeland rd underground station. The end of a big match was an unnerving experience as we sumitted the terracing and went down the steep stairway with my feet leaving the ground for a second or so because the crowd was so tightly packed. I was only twelve at the time and was staring at the shoulder of the person in front until the moment you took the first step down. You had to put your hand on the back of that person in front to stop yourself stumbling forward. As I said earlier that step over the top was always a nervy moment. RIP to all victims of these types of crush events, sadly they are still happening to this day.

To put it in to perspective, crowds at the time in Scotland were huge. Celtic played Leeds in the European Cup in 1970 and there was a crowd of 136,000 at Hampden Park.

Among the many reasons that I enjoy your videos is the little 'weather report' as you sign off. Thank you for the in-depth research, including locations/diagrams/blueprints/charts, comments on each incident's effect on the future, and the funny illustrations that you add.

Most of the large scale high traffic stairwells I've seen tend to fan out towards the bottom which probably helps the crowd density were such a thing to happen.

The Rangers manager at the time, Willie Waddell, also made sure that the players were at every funeral and also visited the injured fans in hospital. There is a good documentary made by Rangers, if anyone wants to learn more. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ediiodCT3Ki9mqM.html

You should cover Monsters of Rock Festival 1988. Not a massive death toll but it had a massive impact on crowd control and barriers for concerts afterwards.

This happened to me at Reunion Arena in Dallas about 30 years ago. So man people leaving a concert and you had to cross the overpass and walk down the stairs to the parking area. The stairs from the overpass to the ground were like 3 stories high so many people tried to go down everyone started falling. Luckily no one got really hurt other than bruises. Never under estimate the stupidity of people in large crowds.

my dad was a big rangers man he always told me about this one , scary thing is the streets can still get pretty packed after the old firm games i usually stay home to avoid it all

Thanks a lot for the quality of the search and the production of your videos! I've never heard of this disaster before.

I enjoy these videos so much. When I see the slowly fading in Plainly Difficult text and that theme music on a Saturday night here in the states, I know I’m about to get tucked into some good docudrama content. Thank you so much for doing these. Never change man.

I would really be interested in a coverage of the 1955 Le Mans catastrophe. That aside, great video.

Good to see hazmat suit guy taking a day off and catching a Rangers match 😃

It’s rare to find a channel as consistently good as yours! This story reminds me just a little of the great crush that happened recently for some reason.

On the topic of crushes, can't wait for you to cover the Itaewon crush from the last halloween in seoul, korea, once they have done their investigation. As for stairs... having been in a stairway crush myself (no casualty, thanksfully, security reacted quickly in establishing a better flow), I avoid overcrowded stairs like the plague. Having to chose between being the crusher or the crushee and step on others for fear of being under is awful.

How horrific! I've been at Disney World and EAA in Oshkosh at closing time and know how confining large crowds can get. I think of disasters like this and it always makes me more than a little apprehensive. I can't even imagine the terror these people felt that day. Rest in Peace to victims of this awful tragedy. :(

No matter how many crushes I learn about it’s just so hard to wrap my head around the reality of them. The death tolls just get so absurdly high in such a short time. And the only threat to the people involved is each other - and generally, no one’s even malicious, just careless, and most have no idea what’s going on around them. It boggles.

Your voice is so comforting to an Oklahoman here in the USA. These videos humble yet baffles me at the same time.

Not gonna lie I saw the thumbnail and audibly said "bruhs making videos about stairs now"

Keep them coming John. I look forward to all your posts.

Amazingly well produced videos. Thanks John

This is why I don't like crowds. I have friends that were at Roskilde, Denmark in 2000 when 9 people died during Pearl Jams set. My cousin, several years older than me, lost a friend during The Who concert in 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'll go to a big concert, but I'm happy to watch from a safe distance.

Now that I know crowd surges are a thing I'm definitely more wary of big events

Excellent work as usual. Thanks John.

Interesting content! I've Subscribed. Keep up the good work! 💖

The lessons that should have been learned from this, and so many other similar occurrences, still remain apparently unlearned. These deadly crushes keep happening. I wonder if you have, or will in future, do one on the football stadium that burned and killed a huge number of people. I'd be interested in refreshing my memory about that one--I think a video about it was shown to me when I was going through firefighting training in the navy.

Great video as always and RIP to the victims 🙏🏾 💖🙏🏾

So interesting having a plainly difficult video on something so nearby!

Thank you for this video. I live in a small country where we seldom have the massive crowds that occur elsewhere but nevertheless, in future, I'll keep in mind this disaster and will take my time standing up and leaving any event after most people have gone.

This was nicely and informatively done. Thank you. Lest we forget, the 66.

Thanks for this. A request I made some time ago. One Love Glasgow Rangers

Great content as always, John. Your delivery is perfect. I'm wondering if you've heard of the Stardust Fire of Artane, Dublin? It was 1981, it was a terrible loss of life.

The picture of the then Celtic manager Jock Stein assisting with the injured rangers fans is truly touching 😥

Now, sports stadiums are built with *ramps* and carefully placed *entry choke points* to regulate the speed and number of people flowing through the exits. This ensures that the lanes of travel can never allow the entry of more people than they are designed to handle.

Concise and informative. I noticed more than a few hazmat suit wearing fans in the graphic. :)

I remember being at school the day after the hillsborogh disaster. I will never forget the feeling of helplessness as your seeing people squashed up against the fence. I don’t know how the fences aren’t designed to be opened in emergencies? No worry about being in any football or concert crowds as most are priced out of going these days!

The fact that you can use fluid dynamics to model the movement of large and dense crowds like this just makes this even more chilling. If you get caught in the crush, you become nothing more than a particle in the flow, only that you won't survive that pressure spike

oh didnt expect to see this on here. ive lived my whole life in Glasgow, everyone here knows about this even to this day kids know about it

I went to The Palace At Auburn Hills (basketball) in the 90's to see Rush. I remember thinking if someone lost their footing near the top, they'd roll down hundreds of feet on steep concrete stairs. After that I never went to another concert.

Great videa as always mate!

However tragic and macabre the events, love your soothing voice and quirky sense of humour😹🙏🖤

For what little I know about Rangers/Celtics rivalry, I have to admit that I'm kind of surprised fan violence apparently played no part in this disaster. The first time I heard of the rivalry, I was shown a photo of a large section of seating where the supporters of the two clubs were divided by a large empty space... with a solid line of riot cops between them.

This reminds me of the love parade, where the police set up barriers to better control the "flow of people" and that's why so many people were killed. Unfortunately, it is also foreseeable here in Munich that there will be such an accident, since the same mistake is made at the Oktoberfest, where a fence has been erected around the entire site to protect against terrorist attacks. but which has the disadvantage that the meadow, which was previously freely accessible from all directions, now only has a few relatively narrow entrances (but the government doesn't listen to my warnings)

I love your videos bro keep making them

The title alone makes this sound scary and tragic thank you for another amazing video though 😊

My Dad was at the game and the same supporters bus as the 5 Markinch boys who died. We heard it on the news and had no idea if he was alive or dead until he came home 4/5 hours later. The bus waited for a long time on the boys then left. He said the bus was silent on the way home as they all thought the boys were dead but wouldn’t find out for some time after 😢

I was one of the lucky ones. My pal and I got down stairway 13 after the final whistle, went to the toilet that was there at the time and then, as we walked out of the ground, I heard louder than usual shouting from the stairs. We thought nothing of it but it was probably the beginning of the disaster. We went to a nearby pub and saw a special news report of the story on the TV in there.

Staircases, especially crowded ones, have always made me anxious. It’s really scary how all it takes is one person to cause a chain reaction sometimes - how you can be as careful as possible yet still get swept up in the madness.

Brilliant show !

Hey John, My grandfather died in a training accident with with the US navy. My father went to great lengths to recover the information with the Freedom of Information act, and made it publicly open. I feel like it could/would make a good episode for your channel, and I'd be happy to give you the information. I'm not really sure how to DM in KZfaq?.

Thanks for your informative summary of this disaster. Unfortunately it wasn't the last crushing disaster at a football game in the UK, and I think I saw in your video a photo from the other major football ground crushing event, the Hillborough Disaster of 1989. Where large numbers of people are involved, organisations like football clubs, concert organisers, etc must put safety at the top of their agenda, because failure to do so has catastrophic consequences as you have have shown here. JFT96.

Great music as always John

Had not heard of this one. Well covered thanks. One on the Hillsborough disaster would be good. You sounds Hugo Talks to me lol

I've never been to any kind of stadium, but I had to deal with stairs and rushing crowds from a very young age. When the bell rang in my elementary school, there was always a stampede of children running down the stairs and it was quite scary. There were no accidents while I studied there, and I honestly don't know if any happened after I moved on to high school, but most people were super complacent about it. Some teachers would ask the children to be patient and walk down normally, but they eventually got tired of asking because no one ever listened. I was a frail and sickly boy so I had to wait 5-10 minutes until it was safe for me to leave. I think that's the reason why I'm so cautious and have avoided suffering major injuries until adulthood. That experience sure left an impression on me. I had nightmares of trying to go down those damned stairs, but I never made it to the end for years. It was so damn satisfying the time I actually made it out and I never had that nightmare again after that.

Eerily similar to the Puerta 12 (door #12) Disaster on the River Plate stadium in Argentina in the late 60s, during a match between Boca Juniors and River Plate. More than 70 people died and 160 hurt

I actually never heard of this before. So thank you for telling the story here. Seems like there is an extra focus on one or two incidents in British football. But how shocking it is! That staircase is a murderer! Rest those poor souls :/

I remember the old crushes at roker park (the old Sunderland stadium). Every match, on the way out, people were so tightly packed you could literally lift both feet up and the crowd pressure would carry you along. I remember there was about a one foot square pillar connected to the wall on the way out, you quickly learned to get as far away from that as soon as possible or you’d get crushed against it and have no chance of getting back into the flow of fans.

Thank you. As a gers fan. This means a lot. The rivalry is out of my interest. But the disaster was a shame. Doesn’t matter what team it is. When innocent children are there I just. I’m only human guys and it’s just a a team to me

*People die:* "Eh" *More people die:* "Eh" *Lots of people die:* "Eh" *Press gets involved:* "Ok, fiiiiine, I'll fix it"

I never fail to find your videos interesting

Great video mate!! I have possible video idea, how about one on the DeepWater Horizon Oil rig Disaster?

Would you do something on the Bradford football stand fire.

"For nearly 88 minutes, not much has happened" Me, an American: "Exactly"

Great video, PD. One wonders why the Rangers borad didn't address the issue long before, given the prior incidents with Stairway 13, right. We had a similar crush in Argentina. The Puerta 12 (Gate 12) Disaster at the River Plate Stadium in 1968 took the lives of 71 people, with over 100 injured. Cheers.

You got the location of 13 wrong early in the film and the popular egress route was not all about the nearby Subway, but that the streets east of the stadium is where Rangers supporter's buses parked. I was there that day, I was 17, and was very lucky. Thank you for posting.

I had to laugh when the badger popped up to explain the derivation of "Ibrox." I've referred to badgers as "brocks" ever since my preteen mania for Beatrix Potter stories. "The Tale of Mister Tod" features the noisome Tommy Brock, a right bastard of a badger who invades the homes of other woodland creatures to sleep in their beds with his boots on and kidnap entire litters of rabbit babies to bake into huge pies. He's found in the bed of Mr Tod ("tod" is Scottish for "fox"), who thrashes Tommy Brock out the door and into the roadway to the cheering delight of every critter in the neighborhood.

Wow, I've never been in a crowd of people like that... I cannot imagine how one person tripping could cause 66 deaths, that's insane! I went into this video wondering how a stairway could collapse XD

I remember on the Saturday afternoon my father listening to the ambulance service on my vhf radio when the message came in about the stair collapse,and the full realisation of what had happened unfolded.

It’s amazing how many times a terrible event has to occur sometimes before something is done to fix a problem.

"All of the victims were under the age of 50" 50 was the average age of death for a man in that area of Glasgow back then, it was only 55 in the early 2000's 👀 there weren't too many old men at the game, because they aren't that many old men in the area

I hate when people disregard safety because it’s cheaper. May those poor people rest in peace.

The largest crowd I've ever been in was at alton towers, leaving after the November fireworks display. I was tired and cold (an adrenaline feuled day followed by a fireworks display that finished around about 9pm, and it was so wet my waterproof coat stopped being waterproof), and can't really remember much, just gripping my mum's hand tightly and trying to not get pulled away from her by the large amounts of people heading into the bottleneck. Everyone was just slowly shuffling towards in, and it was tightly packed. It wasn't a crush, really, but just that made me terrified of the potential of it happening.

I remember this being on the front pages of the newspapers. Utter negligence of the directors of the club who wouldn't undertake any safety measures until forced to.