IT is the opening weekend of the 2020/21 season and Rangers stride out in front of a capacity home crowd to embark on another bid for Premiership glory.

Proud parents sit in the stand and see their kids live the dream as they complete their journey from Auchenhowie to Ibrox. They are joined by Craig Mulholland as his own ambitions are realised.

That is the aspiration for the Rangers youth chief and he hopes it will one day be a reality as he bids to produce Light Blue stars of the future.

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Mulholland has overhauled the Academy structure at the Rangers Training Centre in recent months but it will take years for the benefits to be seen.

He has appointed Graeme Murty as Head Development Squad Coach and set up an innovative partnership with Boclair Academy.

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The blueprint is in place and the production line is up and running. For Rangers and Mulholland, the results will hopefully be worth the wait.

“We need to accept that we need to produce a much higher level of player,” he told SportTimes.

“The manager couldn’t have come to us at this moment in time and said ‘have you got a player that is ready?’ They aren’t because we only made these changes 18 months ago.

“It is going to take a few years for them to come through. If we are sitting at the start of the 2020 or 2021 season and we don’t have a number of players that can go and compete at that level then we have not done our job properly.

“The higher the level the first team get to, the more of a challenge it is for us. We are relishing that.

“The thing about youth development is that nothing will change overnight and it will take time to see the results of the work we are doing now.

“We have got a clear aim for 2020 that a number of players will hopefully come through and that is part of the succession plan that we have with the manager, David Weir and Frank McParland.

“It has not been straightforward, there have been ups and downs, but the in terms of the overall strategy, structure and our playing style, we are definitely heading in the right direction, there is no question about that.”

It will take years for the results of Mulholland’s labour to come to the fore in the Rangers first team but considerable time has already been invested at Auchenhowie.

Inspiration has been taken from youth structures around Europe and players have pitted their wits against teams from across the world as they are challenged in different ways and taken outside of their local comfort zone.

Everything required – from scouting staff to sports scientists – is now in place as Rangers look to become renowned in their own right at youth level.

“If we become a club that gets a reputation for producing talented players, we want to have five or six in the team so that any young player can look up to a number of players,” Mulholland said.

“People go and look at Barcelona, Sporting Lisbon, Benfica or Southampton and we want them to come to Rangers and say that we have got a reputation for producing elite young players. If we are honest, we don’t have that just now.

“That is why we have had to put so many changes in place to make sure we go and achieve that moving forward.

“We want to create something special here but to do that, coaches, scouts, all the staff, need to accept that we need to work in a different way to what we have done before. We need to challenge the norm if we are produce a better standard of player.”

The rebuilding job at Ibrox, at all levels, continues after the darkest days in Rangers’ history and progress has been made across the club in recent months.

The youth structure is no different and is benefitting from investment, both in financial and emotional terms, as the Gers look to build for a brighter future.

It is a backing that Mulholland is delighted to receive, but a promise the Head of Academy knows he must live up to and deliver on.

“We need to provide the board with a return on their investment,” he said.

“Football clubs have a choice. The support we have had from the board has been phenomenal, as it has from the manager, Davie and Frank. Everyone at the club has bought into this vision.

“You can invest in an Academy and believe you are going to produce footballers or that money can be used for the manager to sign a player. It is about making sure we provide a decent return on the investment in the Academy.

“The supporters want young, Scottish players in the team, as do the staff and we are all working tirelessly to do that.

“The fact that we have everyone from the board down buying into this vision can only help. It needs to be in your DNA if you are to succeed.

“If we are sitting in three, four years’ time and we have not provided a return on the investment, the board would be perfectly entitled to come to me and say ‘right Craig, we are going to do something different with this money’. But I am really confident that we can achieve a significant return.”

For those that emerge at the other end of the Auchenhowie conveyor belt, the dream will be the same but the realities could be very different.

Only a couple of kids each year will have the right attributes to make it as a Rangers player and will be able to forge a career in Light Blue.

The physical and technical traits are crucial, but so too is having the mentality to cope with the expectation at Ibrox.

Mulholland said: “The mental aspect of their development is massive and that will be a big part of what Graeme Murty works on, looking at that transition from the Academy to the first team and making sure the players are best prepared for that. He is excellent at that.

“We also have Donald MacNaughton, who is a mental skills coach that comes into the Academy every Thursday and works with the players. We are training in technical, tactical and physical and we need to train in mental as well.

“A big part of that is exposing players to different situations and taking them out of their comfort zone at a young age. We have got talent in this country but we need to test them in different ways.

“That way we will create a mindset that allows them to go and play at the top level with a confidence. That is part of being a Rangers player, there is no question about that.”

*Craig Mulholland is a huge supporter of the Rangers Youth Development Company.

Rangers fans can back RYDC and the Rangers Youth Department in a variety of ways - full details on Stadium Bricks, Rangers Lotto, Rising Stars, Scratchcards, the new Youth Members Club and other initiatives can be found at www.rydc.co.uk.