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Beginnings of reserve football

Rangers' first known involvement in reserve league football was in 1895 when their club secretary William Wilton initiated the setting up of the Scottish Reserve League. The competition comprised the reserve sides of five clubs; Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Leith Athletic and the Queens Park Strollers. In July 1896 the league was expanded to 10 sides, and renamed the Scottish Combination league. In 1909, a new Scottish Reserve League was set up, often including at least one non-reserve side of a non-league club in each of its seasons. The league was disbanded during World War I, but effectively re-established in 1919 as the Scottish Alliance League. As with previous incarnations, this reserve league also contained the first XI of several non-league sides. An AGM in 1938, resulted in the non-league sides being removed and the league became exclusive to First Division reserve sides. The advent of World War II, however, once again saw the suspension of national reserve league football in Scotland, although regional leagues were set up.

Inter war years

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, all competitive football in Scotland was suspended. During this time there was special wartime football in the form of regional league competitions with Rangers playing in the Southern League. The regionalisation also saw Scottish reserve football postponed as the war effort put a major strain on the resources and playing staff of clubs with many of them serving in the Armed forces and some seeing active service abroad. The reserve side were crowned champions of their league in 1939 before seeing the following season abandoned.

1975 league reconstruction

With the end of hostilities in 1946, Rangers returned to play competitive football again with the reserve side featuring in the Scottish Reserve League. This was to continue unchanged for almost three decades until the first of many reconstructions were made to football in Scotland.

SPL breakaway

The formation of the Scottish Premier League in 1998, resulted in a significant change in youth team football in Scotland. The SPL began a league for members clubs youth players aged under-18. This was alongside the Reserve league, which had been revamped into a league primarily for under-21 players. Rangers would go on to win the under-18 league three times, first in 2001–02 then in 2006–07 and most recently in 2007–08.

Reconstructing the youth department

The opening of Rangers Training Centre in 2001 was the one of the first stages in the club's move to develop a football academy. Although the nomenclature was not present at that time, Rangers did begin to focus upon youth development and under the then first-team manager Dick Advocaat the club appointed its first Head of Youth Development, Jan Derks, in March 2000. Derks new role was strategic and operational and saw him lay the foundations for the club's academy as well as helping the transition of the youth set-up to the new training centre. Prior to this, the club had employed a youth development officer, with their focus being solely scouting and coaching. Derks remained in position for three years despite former player Tommy McLean being recruited as his presumptive successor in May 2001 and Rangers eventually appointed former Aberdeen scout George Adams to succeed Derks in February 2003.

As the scope of the youth department grew, so did its costs, so on 20 April 2004, Rangers announced the creation of a new company which would oversee the development of the club's youth players. The company, named Rangers Youth Development Limited, was entirely self-funding but completely owned by the club. It attracted four investors from outside Rangers who have invested £1 million, with the club also putting up an initial £2.5 million. It led to Rangers F.C. being in the unfamiliar position of buying its own youth players from Rangers Youth Development Ltd. The Youth Development company owned the young players and the club had to bid for them, although it had first option on all the players. If both sides cannot reach an agreement on a transfer fee then a FIFA transfer model will be used. Any profit made by the company will be divided between investors with the majority being invested to fund more youth players. The main reason for the formation of the company was to offset the running costs of the club's training centre. However, many of the Rangers fans were opposed to the formation of the new company. The activities of Rangers Youth Development Ltd were largely unnoticed and the company was dissolved after submitting its final set of accounts in June 2010.

The elite development era

In September 2005, as part of a restructuring of the club management, Adams left his role as director of youth football. The moves also saw future Academy heads take over responsibility for youth administration. In May 2017, the club announced its intention to withdraw from the SPFL Development League and play a programme of matches against a mixture of English and European Academies, as well as sides from League One and League Two in Scotland.

In July 2018, it was reported that reserve leagues would be reintroduced in lieu of the development leagues that had been in place since 2009. The top tier of the new SPFL Reserve League featured 18 clubs, whilst a second-tier reserve League comprised nine clubs. Other than a minimum age of 16, no age restrictions applied to the leagues. At the end of its first season (2018–19) which Rangers entered and won, the club – along with several others – intimated that they would withdraw from the Reserve League to play a variety of challenge matches, in a similar manner as two years earlier. They later entered a small league (under-21 plus three overage) along with three other Scottish clubs and Brentford and Huddersfield Town from the English leagues.

In May 2021, it was reported that Rangers (and Celtic) were in 'productive' talks with the Lowland Football League (the fifth tier of the senior setup) to have colt teams playing in their division for the following season, with an earlier proposal to include them in an expanded Scottish League Two (fourth tier) still under consideration by the SPFL for the year after that.