The Rangers Standard

Again I feel like the profit of doom here but let's move away from Casinos, Hotels and all the rest of it.
Casinos will never happen, that was a David Murray fantasy plan. A good idea on paper but realistically it'll never work.

Here's a bit of a 'fag packet' idea of how we should build.
(Adopting the old league model)

D3 - Should have been about sourcing the best under 24 talent in scotland. 4 or 5 quality U24s would have seen us walk the league. (Instead we went out and spent on players like Black, Sheils, Sandaza, Kyle..More or less everyone. I feel this was wrong).

D2 - Should have been about moving forward with these players. With a year under their belt, playing in the side along with the likes of Wallace, Templeton, Jig, Alexander. We should walk this league too.
So the bulk of investestment this year should have been on infrastructure. Up dating the stadium. Adding to MP.
Possibly a few free transfers but again, young, promising scottish talent.

D1 - With a cemented team of proven players, this league should be easily within our grasp. Perhaps 1 or 2 older, more seasoned pros to guide us through a tough league. Players in the 30-31 bracket.

This is the model we should have adopted imv.

As a first time poster I don't want to cause any offence but having only just started reading the TRS webpage and catching up on all the articles I had to post on seeing this one.

Now I've followed us since watching a game on a wee B&W telly on my Grandparents croft on Skye and being told that the team in grey & white hoops, (funny how even with Colour and HD they still play in them), were the dark side and WE follow the team in Blue.....I was four and very confused, although that may of been the skelp around the ear that came with that statement.

Anyway back on track.....

JWilliamson is sceptical and I can understand why but I think he has under estimated your points or maybe slightly misread them. We are currently running at around 46500K average attendance in Div3, as we go up the league and the team gets better/matures the football will get better and we will get bigger crowds.

So to me I think if we have the players on the park then yes we can obtain 95% crowds at 90% of games.

Also this goes into 50% homegrown players, look at Barcelona they have at least 50% of their squad come through their youth system. Now if we are boarding our kids then we can bring them over young, Messi joined Barca v/young, and not only train them but they get an education etc too boot and they are through our youth system.

An idea that can work.

The Far East, Africa, Oceania and even North America are all developing football markets rather than countries and we should be tapping them for young talent to develop.

It's great to see the club looking at setting up academies in Oz and US but what about the Hong Kong or South Africa where we have big expat communities and remember Richard Gough is South African raised....

This rebirth of our club has really seen the fans engage and you can see by the turnouts for CG meet & greets that we are keen to move forward together for the first time in a long time.

I have to agree that our Scouting system is sadly lacking as I don't understand how we can find the likes of Larsson or even Hooper....do we not rate them are our scouts looking in the wrong place!?

Another area we seem to miss is my old home - the Highlands - the amount of talent that is wasted up there because none of the big clubs can be bothered checking out the outer isles and Skye amazes me.....these youngsters used to be lost to Shinty or work becoming more important now Ross County & Inverness are activating monitoring the area to ensure they get them before the Central belt does or they are lost.

This is on our doorstep so come on lets get up there and grab the best.

I firmly believe we are now at the best possible place for recruiting the best youth in the UK & Ireland, (yes Ireland), because they can see they will get a chance to play in the first team as we climb back to where we belong. If you are good enough you will make OUR team and that is a great incentive for any youth player.

So please lets push this idea and make youth the cornerstone or our team, if the Manc's can do it we can, maybe not to that level but we can be pushing for last 16 of the CL with a team of 50% academy players if we run the system properly.

As for some of the other points, collection boxes great idea, more entertainment around the ground on matchday to get punters there early and keep them there after, (a Rangers Arcade), themed restaurants and bars, showing old games before and after the match, or even delayed transmission of the game after.....etc.

God I could go on but I think I've said enough.

Great article and I look forward to the debate it brings and seeing the club take note and action some of your ideas.

@AJohnston

I knew someone would pick up on the arithmetic error. In my defence, not all of the ideas were originally written down by me - some of them were copied in to the article. So on that basis, I think it's perhaps my proof- reading skills which deserve to be slagged.

You make a lot of good points about incentivising our management team - and I'd agree with much of it.

On the subject of CG's 33% wage cap - that's purely for the playing squad. That's also around what we had when we last won the league. I think it was 50% overall when you included executive and support staff wages.


@JWilliamson

I reckon 50% of our first team squad being supplied by our youth team is entirely possible. I'm not suggesting we should have all of them starting, more that I'd rather have guys like Hegarty to rely on as a back-up, than bring in someone like Cribari.

50% of a 24 man squad. 12 players, 6 of which would be purely on the fringes, and 6 of which who would be taking an active role in supporting and starring the the first team - really not that unbelievable if we get our act together.

As I said in the article, none of it is possible if the other parts of the Club aren't functioning.

A well thought out article with loads of potential. Many of the points would work and you are right in what you suggest, it is time the Rangers fans got real, things have changed throughout the game and if we don't change quickly we will lose out.

Murray Park young players are without doubt the best way forward, but the problem in Scotland lies with the coaching. They seem to think if a player is 16, 17 or 18, he is too young for the first team, well not if they are good enough.

If Wayne Rooney was at Rangers instead of Everton when he was 12 - 15 we would have ruined him, as we did with all the other promising players.. I saw him play for Everton against Queens Park at Hampton when he was only 16 and he scored 3 or 4 goals and was sensational. He made it into the first team that year but was watched very closely by Davis Moyes and only played certain games etc. But when he was 17, you couldn't keep him out of the team. As far as I am concerned, Ally is making a big mistake with not starting young Barry McKay in every game he is 100% fully fit. If he is carrying a small knock then that is when you bring him on for the last 20 minutes or so. The other point Ally seems to miss is that Barry is a real entertainer who can beat a man, has pace and can score the occasional goal. The fans want to see him play - it is only the 3rd division and what better league to be given the full opportunity to gain first team experience.

The wage bill must remain competitive for certain players, but you simply cannot match unrealistic wages for anyone in the near future. The best players that we can afford at sensible prices is the only way forward. We MUST walk before we can run. With a good business policy behind us we can get back to being competitive without breaking the bank balance. Common sense must be applied.

Hope the club is working hard behind the scenes developing plans for ibrox area. Sustainability of club could dramatically be increased easily with a hotel and restaurant outside other side of ground surely. Providing better fascilities for the increadably loyal supporters club supporters should also be a priority. Catering in ground is already getting better ive noticed in the last month thankfully. Merchandising is appallling needs a lot of time and effort to get it anwhere near standard of similar sized clubs in England/the world. Plenty to keep Charles and Co going. Obviously keeping the wage ratio at 33% is a given. The club should continue to play Penny Arcade and other appropiate anthems b4 game and encourage debate amongst us as to what fans want the anthems to be. Small but important part of club image fan culture