Murray Park ?

[Danny 0]

Given that we are over 100 years old, its only common sense that more would have been brought through before, we have only been at Murray Park for 20 years or so.

 

The list of current graduates from Auchenhowie is endless, whether they made/make it at Rangers or not, we brought them through and gave them that platform to have a career in football, here or elsewhere.

 

McGregor

Hutton

S Smith

Perry

D Wilson

C Adam

J Ness

McCabe

Burke

G Wylde

McCormack

 

Not mentioning Fleck, Cole, K Hutton, Hemmings, G Adam and the rest......

 

One concern is not enough strikers or centre halfs are coming through, vital positions. I also don't like or trust Sinclair but i think the venue gets a needless bad rep.

 

That team above under the right coach could clean up in Scotland. For whatever reason things didn't work out but there is not one dreadfully poor player in that team.

 

It is of course, all about opinions.

 

I think this post rather incriminates Murray Park instead of defending it.

 

That in 14 years we've produced about 20 players. That's an abysmal return for an academy of this nature.

 

That only one of those players is an absolute first team regular is pretty miserable. In 14 years? We sold Hutton, yes, who did look special at Ibrox in his final year, but has gone onto have a very mediocre career in England. Adam has had a strange career in England, given how terrible he was up here - and frankly I've never been impressed by him down there either. But the point is it's hardly gone the Man Utd or Barca route, that they reared their youngsters and ended up with a world class group of players who effectively made up the first team.

 

As others have said, it's a very shiny training facility, not an academy.

 

Prior to it even existing we produced around the same number of first team successes in maybe the previous 15 years, from 83 to 98. One. Barry Ferguson. there was Scott Wilson who went onto the grandeur of Dunfermline, Greig Shields, Brian McGinty, Charlie Miller, McSwegan, Reid, and Durrant. Maybe some more. Some players who flirted with being great but didn't manage it. Or who ended up at some diddy team.

 

The only difference now is these diddies have a decent setup to train on.

[GovanAllan 0]

Actually Danny I was told by a Rangers employee if Murray Park could provide one first team player a year it would considered a success. I actually laughed when the guy told me he wasn't best pleased.

[simplythebest 0]

The likes of Adam and McCormack surely can't be counted whatever they're doing now, they never managed to establish themselves for us and left for peanuts.

[kuznetsov 0]

Considering the costs and only McGregor and Hutton are worthy then its been a complete waist of resources.

 

Cant speak highly enough of McGregor and Hutton though, 2 absolute gems.

 

Rubbish and a hint of bitterness there?

[kuznetsov 0]

I'm not saying that it hasn't produced anyone, just that it could have been a far better set-up with a bit of forward thinking. A great idea, but wasted. Go back twenty years before it opened and there are similar talented players, if not better.

 

We are letting a Celtic fan run our youth set up, with that handicap i think we do ok, just ok though and completely agree we could be doing better.

[kuznetsov 0]

The unfortunate thing about the above list is that other than McGregor. None of them truly made it at Rangers. Hutton went through a stage where nobody liked him. Then Walter Smith came back he had couple of great games for Scotland and Rangers and he was sold for silly money. All of them (with the exception of those still there) as you say went on to greater things.

 

I would've have liked to have seen Rangers focus more on player development over the last 10 years or so and really lived within our means. Too many managers wasted money on diddies, money we clearly did not have.

 

McGregor

Hutton

S Smith

Perry

D Wilson

C Adam

J Ness

McCabe

Burke

G Wylde

McCormack

 

Would be a great starting 11 and all Scottish as well!!

 

Living within our means did not suit any of the managers Murray employed, PLG aside possibly, they all needed financed and they all happily spent the millions we never had. None of McLeish, Advocaat, McCoist or Smith were ever going to develop youngsters, its not their game. PLG tried it, the dressing room revolted and the fans turned on him when the players were not trying a leg for the manager.

[kuznetsov 0]

I think this post rather incriminates Murray Park instead of defending it.

 

That in 14 years we've produced about 20 players. That's an abysmal return for an academy of this nature.

 

That only one of those players is an absolute first team regular is pretty miserable. In 14 years? We sold Hutton, yes, who did look special at Ibrox in his final year, but has gone onto have a very mediocre career in England. Adam has had a strange career in England, given how terrible he was up here - and frankly I've never been impressed by him down there either. But the point is it's hardly gone the Man Utd or Barca route, that they reared their youngsters and ended up with a world class group of players who effectively made up the first team.

 

As others have said, it's a very shiny training facility, not an academy.

 

Prior to it even existing we produced around the same number of first team successes in maybe the previous 15 years, from 83 to 98. One. Barry Ferguson. there was Scott Wilson who went onto the grandeur of Dunfermline, Greig Shields, Brian McGinty, Charlie Miller, McSwegan, Reid, and Durrant. Maybe some more. Some players who flirted with being great but didn't manage it. Or who ended up at some diddy team.

 

The only difference now is these diddies have a decent setup to train on.

 

No, i was in a rush, i named the first lot of names off the top of my head, there is obviously more.

 

Barca and Man U have a style of play and desire to play football which we dont sadly, even Celtic have it. We are not a silky football, passing and moving type of club, we are a 'win by any means' club. The clubs mentality needs to change, the fans would love it but we need the right man in charge to change things, like i said above, PLG tried changing our philosophy and fans panicked at the first sign of trouble and he was hounded out.

[kuznetsov 0]

The likes of Adam and McCormack surely can't be counted whatever they're doing now, they never managed to establish themselves for us and left for peanuts.

 

Of course they can, we made them the players they are now, they grew into young men and proper footballers under our time. They are graduates of the Rangers academy.

Edited June 1, 2012 by kuznetsov

[kuznetsov 0]

I think this post rather incriminates Murray Park instead of defending it.

 

That in 14 years we've produced about 20 players. That's an abysmal return for an academy of this nature.

 

That only one of those players is an absolute first team regular is pretty miserable. In 14 years? We sold Hutton, yes, who did look special at Ibrox in his final year, but has gone onto have a very mediocre career in England. Adam has had a strange career in England, given how terrible he was up here - and frankly I've never been impressed by him down there either. But the point is it's hardly gone the Man Utd or Barca route, that they reared their youngsters and ended up with a world class group of players who effectively made up the first team.

 

As others have said, it's a very shiny training facility, not an academy.

 

Prior to it even existing we produced around the same number of first team successes in maybe the previous 15 years, from 83 to 98. One. Barry Ferguson. there was Scott Wilson who went onto the grandeur of Dunfermline, Greig Shields, Brian McGinty, Charlie Miller, McSwegan, Reid, and Durrant. Maybe some more. Some players who flirted with being great but didn't manage it. Or who ended up at some diddy team.

 

The only difference now is these diddies have a decent setup to train on.

 

No, i was in a rush, i named the first lot of names off the top of my head, there is obviously more.

 

Barca and Man U have a style of play and desire to play football which we dont sadly, even Celtic have it. We are not a silky football, passing and moving type of club, we are a 'win by any means' club. The clubs mentality needs to change, the fans would love it but we need the right man in charge to change things, like i said above, PLG tried changing our philosophy and fans panicked at the first sign of trouble and he was hounded out.

[UCF2008 0]

I think part of the problem we have with developing talents at Murray Park is the limited crop of footballing talent this country yields. Hence the reason that we've had for a number of years several English players in the National side who've qualified through blood ties.

 

I think we should be placing more emphasis on recruiting young talents from abroad in order to really make the most of our youth development system. We've had a few of those come through so far who've either made limited or no impact on the first team, but you only need to look at the likes of Andy Mitchell who signed for us as an 18 year old having come through Man City's youth system. Then there's young Weiss who Man City recruited in 2006. Under PLG we signed Furman who'd spent 3 years in the Chelsea youth setup. Point being that you can successfully recruit foreigners at a young age, but we've not been doing so.

 

It's actually one thing that disappoints me slightly about the transfer embargo being removed or replaced in that with the allowance of U18's I was hoping we might actually have been forced into investing more in this area.