A STAND-FULL of women at Ibrox Stadium. Was this a John Greig fan club that we never knew about? Indeed not. These women have packed into Ibrox in 1955 to hear American evangelist Billy Graham who filled Ibrox, the Kelvin Hall, and Hampden Stadium for six weeks in 1955 in one of his many Christian crusades around the world. We are not sure why he chose Glasgow, but one newspaper claimed it was because Glasgow was the most sinful place in Britain - although the definition of sinful in 1955 was probably a bit different from now.
Legend is that the Glasgow Herald's report of the first gathering in Glasgow was delayed as the reporter sent along found God, and went down to the front of the stage to be blessed, although he soon fell back into his sinful ways.
It was a success however as church attendances in Scotland rose for the next ten years. Cynics will argue that they could do with a few miracles at Ibrox these days.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here