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New Academy Appointments


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CHANGES within the Rangers Academy are continuing at pace with the appointment of three new members of staff.

 

Joining the backroom team at Auchenhowie are Paul Mathers, the Academy’s new goalkeeping coach who arrives from St Mirren; Graeme Stevenson, the new Academy Analyst who has come from a similar position within the Scottish FA and Greg Statt, the Academy Operations and Scouting Coordinator who has moved from Rangers’ Football in the Community (FITC) programme.

The appointments were confirmed by Head of Academy Craig Mulholland, and he is thrilled to welcome his new men on board.

He said: “I am delighted that we have been able to appoint a number of new staff to the Academy and this reaffirms the ambition we have at the club. At both first team level and in the Academy we are striving to create a high performance environment around the players which will maximise their potential and as the manager has referred to, add value for the football club, by developing their talent.

“Key to creating this environment is the quality of the staff delivering key messages to the players on a daily basis. To fit into our culture and add value all staff we recruit must be ambitious, among the best in their field, open to learning and new ideas and must be innovative and exceptionally hard working on a daily basis. It is about us doing things professionally and to the highest standards on a daily basis and searching for areas of competitive advantage which will benefit the players.

“Paul brings an exceptional level of experience from his time as a player, as a coach at first team level and with the international youth squads. The role of the goalkeeping coach is developing and Paul, utilising his background as one of the leading coach educators in the country, will contribute significantly to not only the development of our Academy goalkeepers but to the development of our overall Academy curriculum.

“Graeme’s appointment as Academy Analyst will be critical to the learning experience of our players and staff. The use of technology, video and statistics is common place at all of the top Academies in Europe, which we are aiming to become, and we, working closely with the first team, will benefit enormously from the enhanced provision in this area. Graeme will bring extensive experience from working with the SFA national squads and at variety of professional clubs and in other sports at elite level.

“I am pleased Greg has joined the Academy from our FITC programme. A key part of our Academy objectives is to not only developing players but also staff and by being able to promote internally and recognise Greg’s talent and potential it provides aspiration and a pathway for the many dedicated and talented staff we have within the Academy. Greg’s background is perfectly suited to the operations role combining a sports related degree from Strathclyde University with a strong organisational background in our FITC department. He is also a highly qualified coach who makes a significant contribution when working with players in our Children’s Academy.

“We are also delighted to confirm that appointment of new coaches within our part-time coaching team.

“Ricky Waddell, previously assistant U20 Coach and Acting Head of Youth at St. Mirren; Drew Todd an experienced youth coach who has worked with several professional clubs and the SFA and Gordon Craig who is Director of Coerver Coaching in Scotland and a former SFA Performance Coach.

“These new appointments will add to our excellent complement of staff currently at the club and will assist us in achieving our ambitious plan.”

 

http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/9792-new-academy-staff-appointments

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Congrats to all the incumbents.

 

As you will all know, I have worked with Greg in creating the partnership between RFC and my wee club here in Bermuda. Can't speak highly enough of him and know that this promotion is absolutely justified. He will do a fine job in Academy Operations and scouting - indeed, he was coaching Academy teams anyway.... I watched him with the 2004's last October and he had them playing in a fashion that Warburton likes his teams to play. Ball on deck, crisp passing, good movement, overlapping full backs.

 

All the other appointments, both full and part time, also look to be of a very high caliber within the Scottish game.

 

Hopefully this is a show of intent on how the Club see the Academy being utilised.

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The more action you see Warburton taking the more you realise what a piss poor manager McCoist was.

 

Not sure how much influence Warburton would have had on the Academy appointees. Might be more of a Mulholland influence as he looks to shift away from Sinclair's regime. Would imagine that Warburton still had some input though.

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All very well but unless this academy(or whatever it's called) can produce players capable of getting into the first team on a regular basis then the whole thing just becomes a financial drain on the club.

I wouldn't get too hung up on youth football as it's often difficult to assess how good a youngster actually is until he moves out of his age group.

And also how do we ensure our greater-funded youth system is better than say the likes of hertz or dundee utd whose will probably have less funding than ours?

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