Craig Mulholland RYDC Q&A Highlights

Supporters had enjoyed a Q&A with former Rangers defender and Academy graduate Steven Smith recently and Craig was next to answer fans’ questions.

He covered a variety of topics during an educational and informative hour and here are the highlights of his session…

Q – In Rangers We Trust – Where do you rank our youth set up compares to other top set ups throughout the world and what other set up do you inspire to be like or surpass?

When we started the new project we set the ambition of becoming one of the top 15 Academies in Europe. We still hold that ambition today and it motivates all of the staff who work in the Academy on a daily basis that we make the incremental steps towards that strategic goal.

We were independently audited by world renowned auditors Double Pass who have worked with the EPL, MLS, Bundesliga, etc. and achieved a score of 88% which was the highest in the country and significantly above the European average where the percentage is in the mid 60’s.  This was a fantastic achievement, which we wouldn’t have been close to achieving 5 years ago, but every day we push on and we look to get better again.

Q – In Rangers We Trust – How soon do you reckon we will have a 1st team (starter) star that has been promoted through the youth? I know ideally all of them would.

We have some exceptional talent in the Academy at the moment. As an example the number of youth internationals has risen from 14 when we started the project to well over 40. These lads are competing exceptionally well in our ‘best v best’ programmes with the top talent from countries like Holland, Germany and England, therefore we believe we have now produced a quality of talent who can push on and play in a successful Rangers winning first team.

The Manager, Steven Gerrard our Sporting Director, Ross Wilson and all of the 1st team and Academy staff are unified with a one club philosophy which embeds our desire for this exciting talent to push through and become regulars in the first team. With careful planning through the Academy to first team transition phase we all firmly believe that we are on the cusp of some of our best talent making the breakthrough, provided of course, they continue to show the attributes required to play for a club like Rangers.

Q – Euan – How strong are the links between the males and the female youth groups?

Rangers have been pioneering in their approach to Women’s football. Our women’s team are now training alongside our other three professional teams housed at the training ground and are fully integrated in our high performance environment. They use the same dining rooms, gyms, pitches, analysis suites, etc. as the other professional teams. This is unique in Scotland and it is great, and in keeping with our tradition, that Rangers are the first to do so.

The club have now employed a head of programme, an operations exec, two full-time coaches, a sports scientist, an analyst, a GK coach, a kit person / driver all on a full-time basis to support the Girls and Women’s programme. Importantly we have also removed all fee’s that the Girls Academy players were paying previously which means all provision is free the same as the boys. Our initial focus has been the Women’s first team, and now that it has been established in a very short timescale, attention will now go to improving standards throughout the Girls Academy, creating something that everyone at Rangers can be proud of.

Q – How do they share resources, learning and development strategies?

All of the football methodology which is utilised in the boys Academy will be replicated identically in the girls Academy. Our culture, our game model, or teaching methodology, player characteristics, etc. will all be the same in keeping with the one club philosophy which runs through the whole of the football department

Q – Jamie – Asides from the obvious health concerns what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing at the moment in terms of keeping the players fit and busy?

We would obviously love life to be normal and having our daily interactions with all of the players throughout the Academy however it is important, in keeping with our Academy value of ‘Positive’, we look for positive opportunities to come out of this crisis. Our staff have worked tirelessly and continue to do so to put in place the best ‘distance learning resources’ we can to ensure that our players are still learning and improving and return to the training ground better players than when they left.

Our enthusiastic and driven staff team have put in place – game model education videos, Rangers skills challenges, brain training curriculum with sense ball challenges, Coerver moves challenges, game model webinars, sports science webinars, individual physical development programmes, diet and nutrition advice and monitoring and a whole range of webinars on educational topics. At the oldest age group the players physical data and well-being data is all returned for monitoring by the sports science team.

Importantly our Player Care Team is also available to all players at this challenging time and among others includes our Well-being officer, mental health nurse, club chaplain and 2 sports psychologists.

Q – Jamie – What’s the thing you most enjoy about your job?

There are so many terrific aspects to this job. Working with intelligent, driven and innovative staff who all have a desire to improve learn and push the boundaries in developing talent is fantastic. The variety in the Head of Academy role from coaching and curriculums, to matches and tournaments, to contracts and football business, to strategy and people management, to player profiling and recruitment, to innovation and research, to dealing with so many different internal and external stakeholders, the list could go on – stimulates and motivates you every day. The belief that we on the verge of something very exciting at Rangers is tremendous.

The best aspect however has to be the young people. Watching players who you care for go through their journey both as footballers and people, helping them overcome roadblocks and challenges, while sharing in their highs, and ultimately seeing them achieve their maximum as a person and as a player is so rewarding. Anyone who has the pleasure of working in this industry needs to absolutely love it, be prepared for long hours and sacrifice when it comes to personal life ad family, but the feeling of reward when you see young people achieve makes it all worthwhile.

Q – Jamie – There’s obviously been a few changes in manager over the last few years. How hard/easy has it been to keep consistency with the work you’re doing with the young players?

At Rangers we have developed and continue to evolve a methodology which we believe will produce players for what football will look like in 10 years. For all of the teams below the Development Squad this methodology doesn’t change greatly when Managers change.  The Development Squad is different in that it must more closely align to the first team so that any young player making his first team debut is completely familiar with how the Manager wishes to play. We have a great and close relationship with the Manager and his coaching staff, particularly the likes of Michael Beale, and we ensure that the programmes are aligned.

The appointment of a Sporting Director is critical in ensuring a continuity exists to the way we develop talent as is the case at all of the top European clubs renowned for player development over many years. Ross Wilson is massive on a one club philosophy which ensures joined up working throughout all of the football departments.

Q – Wilf Marshall – Hi Craig. How do you envisage the current situation is going to affect the progress of the youths?(particularly those of Development squad age)

It is challenging as we would like to be playing games, undertaking training, delivering analysis, undertaking individual programmes, pushing their S&C, etc. at what is a critical time for a lot of development squad players. That’s why we have put in place a fantastic robust on-line programme with a range of challenging home exercises, all of which are carefully monitored, to try to minimise this impact.

Q – Can you see a fast tracking of a few – Kai, Nathan, Dapo etc – due to a protracted transfer window; to more first team action?

No one is quite sure how the transfer window and the current / new season will pan out yet. The message to all Academy players however is no different – to keep pushing, be ready and make sure you are fully prepared so you grasp that opportunity when it comes.

Q – Dave – How far do you see this crop of kids going at Rangers & into the future?

We have as exciting a group of players as I can remember at Rangers, reflected in the number playing international football. If we look at their performances in ‘best v best’ situations in the UEFA Youth League and against men’s first teams in the SPFL Challenge Cup and Glasgow Cup we see players with high technical ability who can dominate the ball, the pitch and their opponents. In the younger age groups at the Alkass Cup a Rangers player has won ‘player of the tournament’ two years running ahead of players from Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Roma, Bayern Munich, etc.  This all augurs well for an exciting future.

Q – Elsie McCready – Hi Craig. How much have you enjoyed watching the young ones doing their training at home, and how do you plan to keep that going?

Hi Elsie, hope you are good. We love your support for the boys on twitter – thanks. All of the planning we have done will allow us to keep interactive and fun practice coming the way of the players for as long as the restrictions are in place. All of the staff are coming up with new ideas all every day to further engage and interact with our young Rangers players.

Q – Calum – What convinced you to go into football and be a coach?

Good question.  I think as anyone who works in football will tell you it is an absolute love of the game and probably as my career has developed a love of developing people.  We often work 60 hour weeks in Academy football but at times it still doesn’t feel like a job, we are very fortunate to work in a terrific environment, in a sport we love, at a fantastic club, with young people you can help on their journey and ultimately contributing to creating a successful Rangers.

Q – Revan – If you were given an extra £50,000,000 budget for the academy what is the first thing you would do with it?

I think if we received those kind of sums the Manager and Ross Wilson may wish to get their hands on it first to sign a few new players! Seriously, one of the things we would prioritise would be the creation of a Rangers ‘B’ team playing in the SPFL. We believe this is a fundamental, and critical, part of our player pathway which is missing and would be a catalyst in realising positive outcomes from all of the other new and innovative work that has taken place over the last few years.

Q – Craig Sutherland – Hi Craig what is your best training methods for the kids to keep them interested and to keep them sticking to positions? I coach a 2011s team and it’s tricky at times to keep them in their positions. thanks

Hi Craig,  thanks for your question. At 2011 we wouldn’t be too concerned by position – the key messages would be to allow them to be free to be creative, express themselves, experiment with many moves and tricks and play a variety of positions – let their imagination run wild and fall in love with the game. Encourage creativity and one v one play and all of the positional and tactical development can come later in their journey.

Q – Colin – Following last year’s Reserve, SFA Youth Cup, U18 League, U16 League and Alkass wins how important is it that the Academy teams win?

The Academy teams are only ever a vehicle for bringing through individual talent, the only team that needs to win at Rangers are the 1st team. A critical part of our ‘player challenge’ objective is to try to create a circumstance where 50% of the games our players play are even in nature and competitive, 25% they should win comfortably and feel a freedom to express themselves and be creative  and we will try to create 25% of the games where it is a real struggle for them and they need to fight with their lives to keep a score down and stay in the game.

The final 25% where they struggle creates resilience, gives the players a massive roadblock to overcome and so long as we support the young players carefully may prove to be the most critical part of their learning on their way to becoming robust hardened elite professionals. We achieve this by sometimes playing players up age groups when we know it might be too much for them, while we couldn’t do this all of the time, it is a key part of the programme and eventually they will find a way to win through adversity.

The biggest challenge of course is educating players, parents and external supporters on this philosophy that sometimes we have achieved more player ‘wins’ in defeat, something that is normal at the big player developers on the continent, less so in Scotland!

Q – Andrew – I was very impressed by Kai Kennedy at the recent game v Brentford B. On a soaking night with the team 2-0 down, his attitude was superb nonetheless and he showed tireless energy, lots of skill too. How far do you think he is from joining the first-team squad for good?

Hi Andrew, good to see you at Brentford – a wet night indeed. The Brentford game was another terrific example of our ‘best v best’ programme where we are thinking out of the box to give our young Rangers players experiences and challenges that young players at the majority of other clubs to not benefit from. This year they’ve had the likes of Ajax, Chelsea, Man Utd, etc. so great that we are pushing them every week.

Kai has had a terrific season and is already being carefully integrated into the 1st team programme by the Manager and his staff.  This is reflected when you look at just the last three months alone where he has travelled with the 1st team to their winter camp in Dubai, playing in a 1st team friendly game, made his competitive debut at Ibrox in the Scottish Cup, trains most days with the 1st team and was on the bench for the last 1st team league game at Ross County before the enforced break. All of this achieved while still only 17 and still eligible for the U18’s.  We are all excited by Kai’s potential and that of many of his colleagues.

Q – Stuart Clark – Silly question been watching the boys doing their skills at home. Why do they roll their hands whilst doing keepie ups?

Good question and good spot!  As part of the new brain training curriculum that we are rolling out things like ‘washing your hands’ while doing the keep up’s is part of well researched methodology to achieve the brain stimulus we require to make the actual activity almost innate. Have a look at the brain training video on the Academy Twitter feed which explains more.

Q – RFCNC – Favourite moment working at Rangers?

I’ve had many great moments from seeing the tears in the eyes of a mum you have known for years when her son is making her debut at Ibrox, to the excitement of signing the new U10’s group each year who all start so enthusiastically on their journey’s each year. The best moment however was being given the opportunity to take on the Head of Academy role by the current board, having turned down a couple of excellent opportunities in England, and now being trusted to lead, with their support and together with a now fabulous Academy staff team, to create a special pathway for talent who contribute to football and financial success for Rangers. We are proud of the strides we have taken so far but with the current Board, Manager, Sporting Director, players and staff all pushing for the same goal it feels as though we are in as good a place as we have been, and with more hard work and innovation, a very exciting future lies ahead.

Q – Derek Warren – Hope you and yours are well Craig. How difficult it is to tell if a talented kid has the mentality to step up to the first team at Rangers. Footballing talent and physical development can be fairly easily assessed, mental strength is a lot tougher I’d guess?

Hi Derek, hope all good with you also. We assess the players using a – ball, game, body and mind – framework.  Probably one of the least trained areas of the four corner model in football clubs is ‘mind’. We therefore now have two sports psychologists who work directly with the players on key mental characteristics we would like Rangers players to have, and they also educate the coaches in this area so that mental skills development is taking place in every session every day. After all to be a Rangers player it is an absolutely fundamental characteristic.

Thanks to everyone who sent in a question for today’s Q&A and with so many, apologies to those who sent in questions we didn’t get to.

This is a horrible time for everyone, please stay safe and follow the guidelines.  Colin Stewart and his fantastic team at RYDC are also struggling to continue as normal at the moment so we really do appreciate any support you can give them.

Once again thanks for supporting RYDC and Rangers Academy.  When everyone at Rangers comes together we can achieve something special.  Thanks, Craig.

For full details on all RYDC products – Rangers Pools, Rangers Lotto, The Union Jackpot, Scratchcards, and Stadium Bricks – visit www.rydc.co.uk or call 0141 427 4914.

It’s a difficult time for us all but RYDC will still continue to operate as well as possible during these unprecedented circumstances.

We hope you all stay safe and we wish you and your families well. We will have further Q&A’s in the weeks ahead.