"As Rangers failed to make any significant challenge to Celtic at the top of the league, 2 January 1971 arrived to make everyone forget about football. At the end of the'Old Firm' clash at Ibrox, the steel barriers on Stairway 13 in the ground gave way and a total of sixty-six people were suffocated to death and many more injured in the resulting crush. It was thought that Colin Stein's dramatic equaliser for Rangers in the final seconds of the match, a minute after Jimmy Johnstone had opened the scoring for Celtic, caused fans who were leaving the ground tocome back and meet a wave of jubilant fans coming in the opposite direction. The inquiry that followed the horrific disaster found this to be untrue. The crowd had remained to the end and were heading in the same direction when the crush took place halfway down Stairway 13. The game had been good-natured and there were just two arrests made by police, both for drunkenness, in the all-ticket crowd of 80,000.

The Old Firm came together to help the victims of the tragedy and a special match between Scotland and a Rangers and Celtic Select XI was played in front of an 81,405 crowd at Hampden."

- Rangers :The Official Illustrated History by Stephen Halliday