Rangers U18s won the league title and secured European football for next season with a convincing 3-1 win over St Mirren on Saturday afternoon.
The Gers came into their final fixture knowing that a win or a draw would definitely be enough to be crowned champions and they held their nerve at the Rangers Training Centre.
The coaching team of Cameron Campbell and David McCallum named a strong starting XI that featured Leon King and Adam Devine, with the latter only recently returning from a loan spell at Brechin City.
Rangers struck first in the game with highly-rated former Glentoran attacker Charlie Lindsay, who has shown strong form of late, finding the net to ensure the hosts were 1-0 up at the interval.
Arron Lyall doubled the advantage in the second half and although St Mirren pulled one back near the end, substitute Rory Wilson restored the two-goal advantage almost immediately and completed the scoring.
It was a particularly impressive result as the young Gers had lost to the Buddies on four previous occasions this season, once in the league and three times in friendlies.
Rangers finished on 25 points from their 12 matches, four clear of runners-up Hibernian [Rfcyouths.wordpress.com], and significantly, the title means that the club will compete in the UEFA Youth League next season alongside elite European clubs.
After the game, several players such as goalkeeper Jack McConnell and defender Robbie Fraser celebrated the league win on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/jack_mcconnell1/status/1398647924163293187
2020/21 has been difficult for the Academy with the pandemic causing major disruption but this is an excellent reward for a talented group.
Many of the players involved in this title win will hope to make the ‘B’ team squad that’s entering the Lowland League next season.
In other news, supporters have raved about Academy graduate Nathan Patterson after outstanding footage of him in Scotland training emerged.
