Stairway 13 Barrier Collapse
On 16 September 1961, after a Rangers v Celtic match, a crush occurred on Stairway 13 at Ibrox. Archival material records a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the deaths of Thomas Boag Thomson and George Napier Nelson. Later Rangers and other retrospective sources state that two people died and 44 were injured.
Incident Overview
What Happened
Date: 16/09/1961.
Location: Ibrox Stadium / Ibrox Park, Stairway 13, Glasgow, Scotland. Archival material also identifies Stairway 13 as the Cairnlea Drive staircase and later sources describe it as the exit closest to Copland Road subway station.
Incident name: User wording is “Stairway 13 Barrier Collapse,” though source language more often describes the event as a crush on Stairway 13.
Summary
Core Findings
After a Rangers v Celtic match on 16 September 1961, a crush occurred on Stairway 13 at Ibrox.
Archival material confirms a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the deaths of Thomas Boag Thomson and George Napier Nelson.
Later Rangers and other retrospective sources place the death toll at two and the injured total at 44. Grim proof that one bad exit point can do awful work very quickly.
See Conflicts →Quick View
Incident Highlights
Chronology
Known Sequence
Outcomes / Details
Operational Picture
Disputed Details
Conflicting Information
The main clashes in the source set are about the injury total and the exact way the event is described.
One directly accessible official club source gives a figure, but the other accessible sources do not provide a clean rival number from directly viewable contemporary reporting.
Says two people died and 44 were injured.
Refer to injuries or injured survivors but do not provide a consistently verified alternative figure in directly accessible text.
44 injured is the best source-backed figure in the reviewed material, but it was not independently confirmed from a directly accessed 1961 report in this session.
Your incident title uses one mechanism, but source language is broader and not fully settled.
Uses the title “Barrier Collapse.”
Several sources describe the event more generally as a crush on Stairway 13, while some later retrospectives say a barrier collapsed or gave way.
The archival listing confirms the deaths and inquiry, but not the full mechanism wording, so the page should keep that distinction visible.
Not Verified
Unverified Details
These points were not firmly established in the supplied research.
Source Material
References
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