McCartney Times

ABOUT fifty young people were taken to hospital yesterday after a near-chaotic welcome to the Beatles by 20,000 outside the Southern Cross Hotel.

Another 200 teenagers were treated on the spot, many of them in Red Cross stations set up in the hotel and in the Australian-American Club opposite.

The welcoming crowd jammed Exhibition Street from Bourke Street to Collins Street.

Between Bourke and Little Collins Streets, there was one solid, swaying, chanting mass of humanity.

Mob hysteria was never far away.

Six ambulances ran a shuttle service to take casualties to the Royal Melbourne and St. Vincent’s hospitals.

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Source: From the Archives, 1964: Hundreds hurt in wild crush to see The Beatles at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne