THE recollections of Ibrox, Heysel and Hillsborough are very different for Derek Pickup. He will never forget, though, as he prepares to remember once again.

His cousin, Nigel, was the youngest victim of the Ibrox Disaster that claimed the lives of 66 supporters on January 2, 1971. In a tragic twist of fate, Derek was present when 39 Juventus fans were killed at the 1985 European Cup final and he would survive the crush in the Leppings Lane end four years later as Liverpool lost the 96.

Pickup mourns the deaths, each one so heart-breaking and cruel, to this day. As he consoles his mother, Dorothy, he can only admire her strength of character to deal with the pain and the worry on each occasion.

It is young Nigel, just eight-years-old and attending his first ever match, that will be at the forefront of their thoughts today as Rangers, supporters and the survivors remember those that went to a game and never returned. It is a fate Derek is all too familiar with.

“My mother is exceptional, she is 87 and still got her faculties,” Pickup told Herald and Times Sport. “But her life has just been tainted and marked by football tragedies and losing people at football.

“When we lost Nigel in ’71, it had such a massive impact on the family. Nigel is buried with my dad, my uncle and my grandparents.

“I went to Heysel in ’85 and Hillsborough in ’89. After Heysel, my mum said I was never going to another football match. We had lost Nigel and she said I wasn’t going again.

“I used to be in the Merchant Navy and when I was home on leave I used to go to whatever games I could. I was stuck behind the goals at Hillsborough.

“Jon-Paul Gilhooley, the youngest victim at Hillsborough, he lived 12 doors down from my mother. She has had so much involvement with football tragedies, there is probably nobody else on the planet who has had to deal with what she has.

“At Heysel, we didn’t have phones and at Hillsborough we didn’t have phones so my mum was watching it on the telly and didn’t know what the outcome was going to be.”

It is perhaps natural given the differences in time, coverage and circumstances that the Ibrox Disaster doesn’t have the profile of those events at Heysel and Hillsborough, but the lives lost and touched by the tragedy remain just as important to remember.

Nigel would spend New Year in Scotland and travel to Ibrox with a family friend. The 1-1 draw between Rangers and Celtic would be the first and last game he would ever see.

“Nigel, it was his first ever football match,” Pickup said. “Eight years of age and he never came back. You couldn’t make it up, it is such a sad, sad story.

“He was a Liverpool lad, but because he emigrated to Canada a lot of people on Merseyside didn’t make the link and they didn’t realise. He was the initial link between the two clubs and Nigel’s tragic story will never be forgotten.

“You just think of the excitement on his face at eight years of age. Someone says they have got you a ticket for an Old Firm game, you are going to your first ever game. The feelings for him must have been immense, but he would never come back.

“Jon-Paul was ten when he went to an FA Cup semi-final and he never came back. It is just so, so sad and both lads will always be remembered.”

Had fate dealt him a different hand, Pickup could have suffered the same outcome as Gilhooley, who was the older cousin of Steven Gerrard and from the same Huyton estate in Liverpool, on that harrowing afternoon at Hillsborough.

There is an emotional tremble in his voice as the recollections from that day are replayed in his mind. His first instinct - as it was at Heysel four years earlier as he spent the night in an Amsterdam train station - was to phone home and to let his mother know that he was safe.

All of those that Pickup travelled to Sheffield with would make it back safely eventually. One was found out in the city, another walking on the M62 as the scale of the tragedy took hold.

“My mother has been gripped by football tragedies for years and I will never forget that day at Hillsborough,” Pickup said. “I remember walking back up the hill going back to our cars, we didn’t have mobile phones, and there were two telephone boxes.

“One was coins and one was cards and every time you walked by the cars it was 10 dead, 20 dead, 30 dead, 40 dead and we were all an emotional wreck.

“Nobody was using the booths for the cards, everyone was using the coins trying to phone home. I picked the phone up, reversed the charges, and my mother just went ‘oh, God’. I said ‘I am alright’ and then I shouted to the other lads to use that booth, reverse the charges and phone home.

“We waited around for hours afterwards. There were 16 of us that went in a van and 13 came back, but the other three lads went astray. It was a sad, sad day.”

It was on the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough that Pickup thought it was time to alert the Merseyside public to the loss of another one of their sons in a football tragedy.

The story of Nigel’s death resonates just as strongly in Glasgow and a group of Rangers fans would travel south to place a commemorative plaque on his grave at Yew Tree Cemetery in Huyton a decade ago.

His father, Joey, now 84, lives in a care home in Toronto. On his 80th birthday, Derek made the journey across the Atlantic to gift a signed Liverpool shirt.

“I phoned Radio Merseyside and they had me on,” Pickup said. “They said that they were unaware of Nigel, they didn’t have any clue that he was the Liverpool link to Ibrox and the youngest to pass away in a football disaster.

“I always thought that Ibrox was a forgotten disaster and I said that on the radio, that there was a generation of people who didn’t know anything about Ibrox. They think of Bradford, Heysel and Hillsborough as the three tragedies.

“I got a few calls from Rangers fans and a few lads phoned me about a year later and said they wanted to put a plaque on Nigel’s grave on behalf of Rangers fans worldwide. I couldn’t believe it, it was fantastic. Those lads came down and put that plaque on Nigel’s grave.

“AFC Liverpool, which is a football team in Prescot, which was were Nigel was from, they have the Nigel Pickup Memorial Trophy and there was a game on the Saturday.

“On the Sunday, we had the service and I said the Rangers fans had been fantastic and that Nigel had been a forgotten victim, as a lot of the Ibrox victims had been. We wanted to bring it to the fore and highlight this Liverpool lad who had passed at a football match.”

It is fitting that the 50th anniversary of the Ibrox Disaster will be marked by an Old Firm fixture as both clubs unite in commemoration of the 66 that were killed and the almost 200 that were injured on Stairway 13.

Coronavirus restrictions will prevent Rangers holding a large-scale service of remembrance but a wreath will be laid at the statute of John Greig that pays tribute to those lost and a silence will be held before kick-off.

A banner in honour of the victims of Hillsborough and Ibrox will also be on display. At a time of isolation, the Rangers Family will be together in spirit this afternoon.

“The 40th commemoration service at Ibrox was just impeccable, it was so well done,” Pickup said. “The Celtic fans were brilliant at the game and for the silence and the way Rangers conducted themselves was excellent and it is a shame we can’t have a service for the 50th anniversary.

“The Scottish lads said that Rangers didn’t do anything for the Disaster for 30-odd years and it was somewhat overlooked. We have the Hillsborough Flame at Anfield but Ibrox, for some reason, never really got due recognition for so long.

“Nigel’s dad Joey was brought up in Huyton, just a mile away from where Steven Gerrard was brought up. All the brothers were brought up in the area where Gerrard is from.

“His dad used to drink in the local club and the manager of the club used to give Joey his tickets. Maybe Steven doesn’t even realise how close the links are.”

As Rangers unite and remember today, those bonds broken in death half a century ago will be stronger than ever in the minds of those who will never forget Ibrox.