The Ibrox Disaster 5th April 1902: five postcards featuring correspondence from an eye witness spectator, the handwriting in old-fashioned German scri

The Ibrox Disaster 5th April 1902: five postcards featuring correspondence from an eye witness spectator, the handwriting in old-fashioned German script from a young man resident in Glasgow, possibly a student at the city university, writing home to Altona (Hamburg) and postmarked 7th April 1902 two days after the Disaster, the postcards are from a rare and early set published by William Lyon in 1902 featuring artist-drawn illustrations of ping pong the imagery being interpretations of Shakespearean quotations, the sixth card has been added to the lot to form a complete set, the original correspondence may well have run to the lost sixth card as there is no apparent finality and signing off (6) A translation to English has been made and reads as follows: postcard 1 Dear Mimi, We have now not heard any more from you for almost a fortnight. Are you well? Hopefully you are not ill as you were with the business of your tooth or is Mother very ill? Today is Monday, and I had expected a letter from you sooner. Write, or if you do not feel too well, get Father to write to us, to let us know how you are. Today is Mother's Day. postcard 2 I shall drink to Mother's health. I hope you are enjoying yourself very much. Dear Mummy, these here are the latest postcards, and I hope they will interest you. On Saturday I went to the big football match with my landlord and doctor. I had never seen such a crowd of people. There was an accident - it was a bit horrific. First of all the people at the back pushed forwards, so that postcard 3 the people at the front were crushed against some railings and many fainted. The spectator area rises very high up and is built like a staircase. It looks a bit like a spectator area in Spain for bull-fighting. You can imagine just how terrible it seemed. It was a bit like a hangar. Shortly before the start of the football match the upper part of the terraces collapsed and a crowd of spectators fell through the construction postcard 4 about 50 feet high, 99 steps, each step was three inches high. So you can imagine just how high it was. Of course then there was terrible confusion and the crowd surged forward onto the pitch, where play should have gone on, so that the game was almost totally disrupted and mounted Police had to keep order. A great many were injured. To date two are dead and about 300 injured. postcard 5 We were not standing far from it all. However, the people here take sport too seriously and first of all little notice was taken. One man, who had fallen 50 feet, even got up again and watched the match through to the end. But this man, although he picked himself up straightaway, seemed afterwards to be very ill. That is the last time I shall go to a football match. On 5th April 1902 during the Scotland v England international football match at Ibrox the back of the newly built West Tribune Stand collapsed due to heavy rainfall the previous night. Hundreds of supporters fell up to 40 feet or so. Official figures reported 25 fatalities whilst 517 people were injured. The stand at the time consisted of wooden terracing supported by a steel girder frame. Following the accident such frameworks were discredited, and replaced throughout the UK by terracing supported by earthworks or reinforced concrete. The tragedy occurred after 51 minutes of the match which was played to a conclusion but subsequently declared void by the two Football Associations. All proceeds of the replayed match at Villa Park, Birmingham, on 3rd May 1902 were donated to the disaster fund. Tragically, history repeated itself on 2nd January 1971 when 'Stairway 13' at Ibrox collapsed as the crowd were exiting the stadium following an 'Old Firm' game. 66 people lost their lives including many children.