DOUBLE DEFEAT
Tuesday 6th May 2008
by Ron Norris

Rangers’ reserves finished a disappointing campaign this week falling to two defeats in their final two games. The first was played on the Saturday with the last game of the season taking place on Tuesday evening.  

On Saturday the re-arranged fixture against Millwall took place behind closed doors at their training ground. With the first team playing West Brom on Sunday the line up mostly featured youth team players.  

Jake Cole returned to action as he looked to overcome his elbow problems, in front of him Michael Wright, Josh Ford, Daniel Bailey and Lee Brown made up the back four, Danny Maguire, Matt O’Brien and Terry Smith were in midfield with Aaron Morgan-Cummings, Antonio German and James Folkes provided the attacking threat.  

For Bailey this was his reserve team debut after stepping up to the under 18’s for the first time last week whilst Folkes was making his first start of the season for the reserves.  

Details are scarce but Rangers fell to a 2-0 defeat before moving onto the final match of the season against Aldershot at Loftus Road on Tuesday night. 

Despite still only featuring young players for this one the line up could still be considered more experienced with many of the youngsters featuring regularly for the second string this season.  

Reece Crowther replaced Cole in goal and there were four other changes as Billy Coyne, Stefan Bailey, trialist Michael Antonio and Romone Rose came into the side at the expense of Smith, Daniel Bailey, German and Folkes.  

Scott Donnelly returned to Loftus Road for the first time since his release and helped secure victory for his new club.  

Danny Hylton put The Shots ahead after fifteen minutes but Rose, fresh from making his first team bow on Sunday, pulled the scores level after the break with his third reserve team goal of the season.  

Donnelly restored Aldershot’s advantage from the penalty spot after 55 minutes before Danny Hylton wrapped things up for the visitors a couple of minutes later.  

Rangers finish the season bottom of the ten team reserve team league with 14 points from 18 games. However that only tells half the story. Most of the season has been used to give the under 18’s a step up into more competitive games and whilst that might have been at the detriment of consistent results hopefully that experience might prove valuable going forward.  

That said the Football League really do need to restructure the reserve divisions into something more useful. Reserve team football should be as regular as first team fixtures enabling you to blood youngsters, recuperate injured players and give fringe players a chance to show what they can do, as it stands, with so few fixtures each month it simply isn’t fit for purpose.