RANGERS are delighted today to announce further detail around our exciting Womens’ and Girls’ programme at the club including the addition of Malky Thomson to the coaching staff.
It has been a busy festive period for the Rangers with the announcement of six new professional signings with more to follow ahead of the new season starting in February.
Rangers are delighted to be pioneers in the women’s game in Scotland and are the first full-time professional women’s team in the country to be fully integrated into the football department.
From January, our high-performance training centre in Milngavie will be the home of four professional teams with the newly formed Women’s first team, joining our male under-18’s, the men’s Development Squad and of course the men’s first team.
To create an elite environment and structure around our female players, the club are currently recruiting for several roles at the club, including a Goalkeeping Coach, Sports Scientist, Analyst, Kit Controller/Co-Ordinator and Driver, Physiotherapist and also an Academy Manager and Scouts, to support our Women’s first team in the move to full-time football.
This will create a qualified and experienced staff team which, combined with some excellent existing staff, is unrivalled in Scottish Women’s Football.
As part of the restructure we are also pleased to confirm that Malky Thomson will move from his role of Head of Intermediate Academy in the boys Academy to coach the Women’s side alongside Gregory Vignal.
Given the size of the programme and, the quality of provision the club is striving to surround our Women’s players with, the additional shared coaching expertise will allow us to take our coaching provision to a new and much higher level as we strive for excellence in all areas.
In a long coaching career, Malky has gained fantastic experience having worked as a Manager, Assistant Manager, Reserve Coach and as a coach with various Academy age groups with clubs in leagues including the Scottish Premiership, the English Premier League and the English Championship as well as working abroad in India and Dubai.
Malky’s expertise will add to the extensive experience Gregory Vignal has as a player at the top level with clubs such as Rangers and Liverpool and working together they will create an excellent coaching team to achieve success for Rangers Women.
Head of Academy, Craig Mulholland said: “One of our aims in the boys Academy over the last four years during our massive transformation has been to work on the premise of continually pushing for excellence and striving to be better every day, and our Women’s programme will be no different.
“The addition of Malky, an excellent experienced coach with endless enthusiasm for the game, to work together with Gregory takes us closer to this aim.
“With the new players Amy and Gregory have already worked hard to add, some of the exciting player signings still to come and of course the addition of more new highly qualified staff everyone at the club can’t wait for the start of the new season.”