Today sees the announcement of new additions to the Oxford National Biographical Dictionary, and among the names added to this prestigious list is the man whose work on the Main Stand at Ibrox can still be appreciated today.
Archibald Leitch, a Rangers fan and architect, was responsible for both the 1899 Ibrox Park and the famous facade of the Main Stand, opened in 1929, as well as other work on many of the most iconic stadiums across the British Isles.
But the coverage of his entry into this fine company has been somewhat odd: especially from those within his own country and city.
Consider the following:
BBC and The Herald (same text, no author)
The Glaswegian
"Engineer Leitch became Britain's most prolific stadium architect, who was behind the grounds at Manchester United, Arsenal, Everton, Sunderland and Hampden Park. A generation on it was Glasgow as a city of mass entertainment that shaped the life of Archibald Leitch, Britain's greatest stadium architect.
Now best known for Ibrox Park, Leitch's designs were - until very recently - found across Britain, having been used by hundreds of millions of spectators during the 20th century."
Evening Times (no author)"Biographies include...Archibald Leitch, who designed the main stand at Ibrox Stadium."
The Scotsman
(Arts Correspondent Tim Cornwell, who leads with the Leitch recognition)
'A FOOTBALL stadium architect, who watched in anguish as 26 people died in the stands he had designed at Ibrox Park, yesterday won recognition for his later achievements that improved safety for fans.
In 1902, Archibald Leitch was among the spectators who ran to help the victims after wooden terraces collapsed at the new Ibrox stadium.
"I need hardly say," he wrote later, "what unutterable anguish the accident caused me, surely the most unhappy eyewitness of all."
Yet his reputation rebounded so well that his firm went on to work for 30 British and Irish football clubs. And yesterday his name was added to the roll of prominent Scots in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), as the world's first specialist designer of football grounds.'
The short release to accompany the update does not make mention of the 1902 disaster, far less present it as the most newsworthy and memorable life contribution. The full preface, insofar as it deals with Archibald Leitch, goes as follows:
OXFORD DNB, Preface to the October Update (Lawrence Goldman, Editor)
http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/prelims/title/preface/
"Alongside cinema, football was another mass entertainment form of the early twentieth century. While the crowds focused on events on the pitch, their ability to do so in their hundreds of thousands owed much to the Glasgow engineer Archibald Leitch (1865–1939), who became Britain’s most prolific and innovative stadium architect. Leitch’s success is all the more striking given that his career was almost ended following the collapse of a stand at his new Ibrox stadium in Glasgow in 1902. Cleared of responsibility for the disaster, he went on to create grounds for, among other clubs, Rangers (for whom he rebuilt after 1902), Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton, Sunderland, and Aston Villa, with designs that remained in use until wholesale redevelopment in the 1990s."
It's worth asking why the Herald and the BBC - consistently less than enthusiastic about Glasgow's premier team and Scotland's most important sporting institution - should offer such a sour and jarring dismissal of the career of a man who was lauded as the finest of his type? Especially when those employed at an Edinburgh newspaper, and a small scale Glaswegian organ, can manage to both read and take in the significance of the words of the editor of the ODNB.