Hampden Park, Glasgow, is by far the most emotive sporting locus in
Scotland. For generations of Scots, it has been the ultimate field of
dreams. In his dramatic and action-packed history of the ground --
The Hampden Story, to be published by Mainstream later this month
-- Russell Galbraith recalls the triumphs and the disasters, all the
great games and all the big names. Our two exclusive extracts
focus first on the bad (indeed the ugly) and then on the good (indeed
the beautiful). Today Galbraith recalls the two disgraceful riots that
disfigured the ground, first in 1909 and then in 1980.
Bottles and stones
were thrown at the
officers, who pluckily
held their ground
Only the brave intervention of a
comparatively small number of
police prevented supporters of both
sides from killing each other.
ALMOST everyone in the crowd of 60,000 who assembled at Hampden Park
on April 17, 1909, hoped they would see the Cup won in style, although
some would have settled for winning at any price. In a match featuring
the Old Firm, with a few neutrals present, there was only one truly good
result for either side -- victory! Few of those present would have been
happy when, for the second time in a week, the two sides finished level;
one each.
Rangers and Celtic wanted the match played to a conclusion; players
from both sides remained on the park long after the final whistle. In
the stand and on the terracings, as if expecting, or demanding, extra
time, thousands of fans waited with growing impatience for the game to
continue, unaware that, behind the scenes, a second replay had been
ordered for the following Wednesday.
Approached by a number of players and asked if he would allow the game
to continue, the unfortunate referee, who required offical approval for
such action, was obliged to refuse. Blowing insistently on his whistle,
and waving urgently at the players to leave the field, he brought the
day's official proceedings to a ragged conclusion.
Given the circumstances, and the explosive nature of the occasion, it
would have been impossible for the authorities to establish with any
accuracy how the worst of the trouble started. One eye-witness decribed
how ''a few individuals, who invaded the playing pitch more in a spirit
of curiosity than mischief, were joined by a crowd numbering several
hundred. Two policemen guarding the narrow passage leading to the
players' quarters blocked their path to the pavilion. The policemen
refused to stand aside and the crowd tried to overwhelm them with force
of numbers.''
As described by one reporter, ''Bottles, stones, and ashes were thrown
at the officers who pluckily held their ground though unable to prevent
about 40 venturesome men from making their way to the rear of the
covered stand. There, the mob were met by mounted constables and driven
back on to the playing pitch.''
Meanwhile, other sections of the crowd had invaded the pitch and
uprooted the goalposts at both ends. That appeared to be the worst of it
until a number of rioters ''left the field, rushed to the foot of the
north terracing, and proceeded to tear down the lining of the
barricades'', as The Glasgow Herald reported bleakly.
''Their object was soon apparent,'' the newspaper continued.
''The timbers were piled on the running track and set on fire. An
infuriated crowd surrounded the blazing pile and danced and cheered
wildly while willing hands seized more woodwork to feed the flames.''
The bonfire of timbers torn from the barricades grew and spread. A
huge crowd cavorted happily and noisily in the vicinity of the flames.
Sparks and smoke drifted towards neighbouring tenement homes. Astonished
tenants, looking down on the disturbance from three-storey windows, and
unaware of any danger to themselves, gaped and cheered.
Hundreds of fans could be seen ducking beneath the penning wires which
divided the terracings and scrambling on to the track, running across
the playing field and climbing into the stand.
A small group of mounted policemen guarded the players' entrance to
the pavilion. The men wore dark uniforms, with military-style peaked
caps. The horses were brown, with large eyes, short manes, and long dark
tails. Together they represented an elite unit within the Glasgow force.
Usually, on match days, the demands made on their time never stretched
beyond crowd control and helping to direct traffic in the precincts of
the stadium. Everyone took it for granted there was a darker side to
their nature and training.
James Verdier Stevenson, an Irishman, born in County Westmeath and
educated in Dublin, was a tough, uncompromising character with a strong
sense of public order who had been Chief Constable of Glasgow since
1902. Before coming to Scotland he had been head of the local
constabulary in Belfast, where be gained a reputation as a hardman. It
would have been his considered opinion that any football fan who allowed
himself to become part of a mob at Hampden, for whatever reason,
inflicted a personal affront on the dignity and reputation of the city.
People expected Stevenson and his officers to use whatever force they
deemed necessary to quell a riot. However, as the post-match activities
of large sections of the crowd continued at Hampden on that fateful day,
without strong reinforcements it was clearly unreasonable for anyone to
imagine that six or eight policemen on horseback could make much
impression on a riotous mob numbered in hundreds -- as The Glasgow
Herald informed its readers angrily in the aftermath to the events.
As the small group of mounted policemen bravely attempted their
near-impossible task, they were quickly surrounded on all sides, the
crowd in huge numbers pushing hard, forcing the horses to stumble,
tugging at their harness and the long coats worn by the riders,
pulling them out of control, so that finally, according to one report,
''at least two of the policemen were unhorsed and badly beaten''.
Other reports claimed that, elsewhere in the stadium, policemen who
lost touch with their colleagues had been set upon and beaten
unmercifully. Ambulancemen attempting to go to their aid also risked
being attacked. Similarly, when the Queen's Park Fire Brigade, with nine
engines in attendance, arrived on the scene, hoses were cut, and the
firemen forced to defend themselves against the riot
ers, standing shoulder to shoulder with the police and hurling stones
to deter their attackers.
In addition to the bonfire on the cinder-covered running track, a
burst of flame threatened the roof of the main pavilion at one stage and
the entrance to the ground in Somerville Drive was totally destroyed,
threatening houses on the opposite side of the narrow street.
At the height of the battle more than 300 policeman on foot and on
horseback, who had been rushed to the scene with batons drawn and ready
for use, were needed to disperse the crowd, forcing them into retreat,
back on to the terracings, where it was found the cables used in penning
made an organised charge, and counter-charge, almost impossible.
It appeared to The Glasgow Herald that the authorities ''were content
to keep the mob on the terracing, hoping that no further mischief would
be attempted and that the large covered stands and pavilions would thus
escape damage''. To the same source ''the pitch resembled a miniature
battlefield, civilians and policeman being carried over the ground in
dozens of stretchers or on the shoulders of willing helpers. Inside the
pavilion a number of medical men, assisted by four physicians from the
Victoria Infirmary, were administering first aid to the injured.''
At an emergency meeting, held to discuss the implications of the riot,
it was agreed for the first and last time in the history of the Scottish
Cup to abandon the competition and withhold the trophy and medals. The
decision had been taken, SFA president John Liddell was anxious to
explain, in order to convey the association's total disapproval of what
occurred at Hampden; and to avoid the risk of any repetition of what
happened in the previous match.
More than 70 years later, when a different generation of supporters of
the same two clubs reprised the riot of 1909, public reaction was much
the same. As The Glasgow Herald insisted: ''Arguing over which set of
supporters was to blame is an irrelevancy -- a futile extension of the
mindless partisanship that was the real cause of the trouble.''
On this occasion, the final of the Scottish Cup, played at Hampden on
May 10, 1980, the crowd was treated to a result. But the score, 1-0 to
Celtic in extra time, was never likely to improve the mood of the
Rangers faithful. Rangers needed to win to clinch a place in Europe the
following year. Celtic were hoping to compensate for the late loss of
the Premier championship to Aberdeen, in a thrilling finale to the
season-long struggle, by the margin of a single point. Afterwards, as
people inside and outside football tried to assess the extent of the
damage that had been done to the good name of Scotland by the
after-match mayhem at Hampden, it was left to the football writers to
remind anyone who cared to listen that it had been a match worthy of the
final.
As Jim Reynolds argued in The Glasgow Herald, the match was one of the
most enjoyable Old Firm encounters for a long time: hard and tough, but
fair, and laced with good skills from both teams. Not that any of this
mattered to those intent on causing trouble. How many of those
responsible for the after-match scenes which disgraced the game in
Scotland cared that the winning goal, by George McCluskey, after 107
minutes as witnessed by Alex Cameron of the Daily Record, was both
cheeky and clever? ''Danny McGrain had shot the ball viciously back as
it was headed out,'' Cameron wrote. ''McCluskey, back to the goal,
flicked the ball with the outside of his left foot, changed direction
completely, and sent it well away from McCloy.''
IT WAS only the 11th Scottish Cup final meeting between the two clubs,
excluding 1909 when the trophy was withheld. Before the 1980 final
neither side could claim any advantage from the record books. Between
1894, when the two clubs first met in the final of the Scottish Cup, six
Old Firm finals contested between 1963 and 1977 ended with each side
able to claim the same number of wins.
GeorgeMcCluskey's goal put Celtic ahead. It also prevented Rangers
enjoying their third hat-trick of wins in the competition since the war.
The result also meant that, for the first time in 15 years, Rangers,
fifth in the league, failed to qualify for Europe.
The absence of lucrative, and glamorous, European opposition from the
Ibrox calendar in the year ahead was a bleak prospect for the always
ambitious Glasgow club. And, obviously, a huge disappointment to their
army of followers. But whatever the measure of their disappointment, and
however great the elation enjoyed by supporters at the opposite end,
no-one from either side, and no sensible supporter, could condone the
after-match scenes that disfigured the afternoon.
''The trouble started when Celtic fans spilled from the east terracing
to acclaim their Cup-winning
heroes,'' the Daily Record reported. ''Then raging Rangers fans swept
over the fences at their end and battle was joined.'' Showers of
bottles, stones, and cans rained on to the field. ''Battling fans, armed
with iron bars and wooden staves ripped from terracing frames, created
the most violent and ugly scenes seen at Hampden in more than 70
years,'' the report continued.
There were obvious similarities with events surrounding the Scottish
Cup final of 1909, not least the presence of teams representing Rangers
and Celtic. But this time, right from the start, instead of turning
their immediate attention to the police the fury of a large number of
opposing supporters was directed almost totally against each other.
Gangs of youths, who claimed an undying interest in the fluctuating
fortunes of both clubs, pursued rival groups on to the Hampden pitch.
And there, in full view of live television cameras which stayed long
after the game was finished to record the mayhem, they stood and fought;
not for the first time, in a city where this was the kind of colour
difference that really mattered, blue raging at green.
The winners had been given SFA permission to parade the cup in front
of their ecstatic followers: in the event of a Rangers victory, the
Ibrox side would have been equally entitled, and just as likely, to
demonstrate their delight. A 10ft perimeter fence had been installed at
considerable expense to prevent disgruntled, or excited, fans from
either side invading the pitch. Before the final, officials of the SFA,
determined to rid the game in Scotland of its persistent hooligan image,
appeared inordinately proud of their splendid new fence. Now they
watched in horror as hundreds of Celtic fans, intent on joining their
heroes' on-field celebrations, clambered across with ease.
''The barriers were completely inadequate,'' Chief Constable Patrick
Hamill complained later. ''They acted as no deterrent.''
At first, according to an official SFA report which examined the cause
of the riot, there was nothing violent in the exchanges between players
and fans. Rather, according to the SFA, it was a spontaneous, if
misguided, expression of joy, with fans cavorting around and generally
celebrating with the Celtic players their exuberance at victory.
But long after the losers' medals had been presented, on the west
terracing, at least, disappointment at the result was clearly palpable.
Hundreds of Rangers fans, determined to salvage some sort of perverse
satisfaction from a disastrous afternoon, remained in their places to
hurl abuse at the winners parading the Cup; to fill the Hampden air with
jeers and taunts.
The presence of any number of Celtic fans, chanting and jeering on the
Hampden playing pitch, mixing with their idols, triumphant in green and
white hoops, happily posing for photographs, waving to their supporters,
and passing the Scottish Cup from hand to hand, was unlikely to improve
the questionable demeanour of those who watched the celebrations, with
angry concentration, from the Rangers end.
And no-one with any real sense of Glasgow was entitled to harbour
feelings of surprise, never mind shock, when fans in blue and white
scarves, occupying the west terracing, began scaling the inadequate
fence that separated them from their tormentors.
People of a generally pacific nature who remained in the stadium,
expecting an orderly end to the match, and millions more watching on
television, could only stare in disbelief when, in the words of one
eye-witness: ''The thin blue line of police found themselves overwhelmed
as fans descended upon them from the terracing, scaling the much-vaunted
safety fences with ease.''
Predictably, it wasn't long before the earlier, harmless cavorting at
the Celtic end, described in the SFA report, altered course with
disastrous effect. No sooner did the first wave of Celtic fans cross the
half-way line than a large number of Rangers fans went to meet them --
''ready for war'', in the words of one report.
''There was no question of celebration in the minds of the fans who
invaded from the west end of the ground,'' the SFA reported,
ingenuously. ''They had violence in mind, and no sooner was it offered
than it was returned with enthusiasm.'' Before long, ''the pitch had
become a battlefield and the police and medical centres outside the
south stand looked like a scene from a disaster film''.
Only the brave intervention of a comparatively small number of police,
some of them on horseback, prevented supporters of both sides from
killing each other -- and anyone else who happened to intrude.
Chief Constable Hamill was later criticised for positioning too few
men inside the stadium at the end of the match. However, additional
police were assigned to Hampden immediately the extent of the fighting
became known. At the height of the trouble, 500 police were on duty
inside the stadium, helping to quell the riot. ''Just how many officers
does it now take to police such an occasion?'' a police spokesman,
fielding criticism with ill-concealed anger, inquired later.
The SFA was in no doubt that what happened at Hampden following the
match ''brought disgrace upon the two clubs concerned, upon Scottish
football generally, and were an affront to Scotland as a nation''.
A fine of #20,000 was imposed on each of the finalists. Celtic felt
particularly aggrieved that, in some quarters, they were singled out for
special blame. Immediately after the match, the president of the SFA,
Willie Harkness, told reporters it was the Celtic players parading the
cup in front of their own fans that helped spark the pitch invasion.
Even worse, the Secretary of State for Scotland, George Younger, in a
statement to the House of Commons, claimed it was drink, and the actions
of the Celtic players, that led to the riot.
Billy McNeill, the Celtic manager, defended his team against
all-comers. ''I felt that nothing my players did was anything other than
players throughout the world would have done in similar circumstances,''
he told reporters. ''For anyone to suggest that they were the culprits
for what happened was, in my opinion, irresponsible,'' he insisted.
More than 160 people were arrested inside the ground and 50 others
outside. In the words of one report: ''For a time it was mob rule, with
hordes of fans, most of whom were drunken teenagers, jostling,
swaggering, jeering, swearing, and singing along the main routes into
the city.''
The Glasgow Herald thought the appalling scenes at Hampden put the
whole of Scotland, and especially Glasgow, in a shameful light. ''Years
of patient effort to persuade industrialists and others that Glasgow is
a desirable place to live are easily negated in a few moments on the
national television news,'' the newspaper commented sombrely.
Most people acknowledged the religious differences that existed
between supporters of the two clubs -- ''the root cause of the hatred
and bitterness which has existed between the two sets of supporters for
decades'', the official SFA response noted scathingly.
* Extracted from The Hampden Story by Russell Galbraith (Mainstream,
#14.99) to be published on Monday, October 25.
* Next week: the greatest of all games played at Hampden -- the
unforgettable 1960 European Cup Final.
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