Several promising teenagers have made their first-team debuts in recent times, but who is Rangers’ youngest ever player?
Since his arrival at Ibrox in the summer of 2018, Steven Gerrard has maintained that if Academy players are good enough, they are old enough.
In reality, opportunities have been relatively hard to come by for youngsters during the club’s journey back to the top of Scottish football.
However, Josh McPake, Nathan Patterson and Kai Kennedy all made their debuts as teenagers during the 2019/20 campaign, with Patterson subsequently establishing himself in the first-team squad.
In addition, Dapo Mebude made a substitute appearance during the final fixture of the 2018/19 season, while Ciaran Dickson and Leon King, who were aged 18 and 16 respectively at the time, both made their debuts in a League Cup fixture against Falkirk in November 2020.
The record for Rangers’ youngest ever player still belongs to Derek Ferguson, though.
The former midfielder made his debut for the Gers on 24 August 1983 against Queen of the South, aged 16 years and 24 days.
He would go on to play over 100 league matches for the club over the following seven years, before going on to represent Hearts, Sunderland, Falkirk and many others in a career that ran until 2006.
Ferguson’s record came close to being broken when Billy Gilmour made Rangers’ 20-man squad for a Scottish Cup clash against Morton at Ibrox in February 2017, aged just 15.
However, Gilmour didn’t make it onto the pitch and left for Chelsea just a few months later without making a senior Rangers appearance.
Check out our Top 10 list of Rangers’ most expensive signings, here.