Edit What do you know about Ibrox?
Ibrox is to the south of the Clyde next to Govan.
It is within walking distance of the new Pacific Quay Media Park, housing BBC Scotland, Scottish TV and other production companies along with the Glasgow Science Centre. The opening of the Clyde Arc provides easy road access to the north of the river.
The name Ibrox comes from the Gaelic for 'badger's set'.
Ibrox Stadium, originally Ibrox Park, is the stadium of Rangers F.C. It is located on the south side of the River Clyde, on Edmiston Drive in the Ibrox district of Glasgow, Scotland.
As one of the oldest and largest stadia in Britain, the site of two major disasters and as one of the first wave of predominantly all-seater football grounds in Britain, Ibrox has been identified as a stadium of historical significance.
Its architectural importance was recognised in 1987 with the designation of its South Stand, now named the Bill Struth Main Stand, as a Category B listed building.
Rangers' early history was an itinerant one. After the team's first match in 1872, Rangers played home matches in a variety of locations across Glasgow. In 1873 they played mainly at Fleshers' Haugh before moving to Burnbank after two years.
Then in 1876 they went on to play at the home of Clydesdale cricket ground in the Pollokshields area, Rangers first moved to the Ibrox area in 1887, playing on a site immediately to the east of the current stadium. The first match at this stadium was an 8-1 defeat to English side Preston North End on August 20, 1887, watched by a crowd of 15,000.
In 1899, as landowners tried to reclaim part of the site leased to Rangers, the club opted to move to the site of the current Ibrox, raising funds for the construction of the new stadium by formalising the club as a limited company and issuing 12,000 one pound shares. The new Ibrox was formally opened in a 3-1 victory over Hearts on December 30 .
The new stadium comprised large wooden terraces and a stand accommodating some 4,500 spectators. Its design contributed to large-scale loss of life on April 5, 1902, when 25 people were killed and 517 injured as part of the west terracing collapsed during the annual international game with England.[5] It constituted football's worst disaster at that time.
Remedial improvements to Ibrox continued from 1902 until 1917. But it was not until 1929 that the next major redevelopment occurred, with the completion of the new Main Stand, to the south side of the ground, on the 1st of January. Its designer was Archibald Leitch, the Scottish engineer responsible for stands at the grounds of Arsenal, Celtic, Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Aston Villa.
Leitch's work was later to become amongst the most celebrated of football architecture. The Main Stand at Ibrox provides a classic example of Leitch's characteristic style of criss-cross steelwork balustrades. Leitch's designs, until cantilever stands began to emerge from the 1950s, were considered leading-edge, and the Main Stand has been described as "perhaps the most majestic" example of his work.[
With the Main Stand completed, the bowl-shaped ground was one of Britain's largest football stadia, with a total capacity said to be 139,940, second only to Hampden Park .
The appearance of the stadium changed little for several decades, until a dramatic redevelopment over the final decades of the 20th century. The first major innovation came with the construction of the Copland, Broomloan and Govan stands in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This involved a radical reshaping of the stadium, with the old bowl-shaped configuration replaced by three new, freestanding structures, alongside the remaining Main Stand.
The spur was the Ibrox disaster of 1971, which resulted in death of 66 spectators and prompted the club, led by General Manager Willie Waddell, to begin to develop a more modern - and safe - stadium.
This involved the removal of, first, the east terracing (the traditional Rangers end, sometimes colloquially called 'the Derry') and its replacement with the Copland Road stand. An identical stand on the west side of the ground, the Broomloan, was added a year later. The redevelopment was completed with the Govan stand, which replaced the benched-seating Centenary Stand, built in 1973.
A further series of developments was instituted in the early 1990s to enable the stadium to comply with the requirements of the Taylor Report and to increase overall capacity. A third tier - the Club Deck - was added to Leitch's Main Stand, adding 7,300 seats.
The remaining standing areas of the ground, the east and west enclosures of the Main Stand, were seated at around the same time. In a further effort to expand the stadium's capacity, the configuration of the now all-seated stadium was altered in the mid-1990s, and two additional areas of seating added in the spaces between the Govan and Copland/Broomloan stands. T
he ground's name was officially changed to Ibrox Stadium after renovations completed in 1997. By 2005, the stadium's all-seated capacity was 50,411.
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