What happened to 50-goal Rangers academy hopeful tipped to replace Ally McCoist
03/26/2025 05:00 PM
It's been a long time since Rangers produced a striker from the you ranks into the first team who made an immediate impression and then kept their place in the team.
In fact, it's been 40 years, when Robert Fleck joined Ally McCoist as a deadly duo in front of goal before the former left for England, probably, a season or two too soon – ironically, the former was preferred by Scotland in Italia ’90 despite the latter’s partnership with Maurice Johnston.
Graeme Souness seemed to want the archetypal 1980's big man/little man pairing whilst Fleck and McCoist were more like pairing two players like Danilo together.
There have been many an exciting young forward in the Rangers academy, but none with the goalscoring exploits of one who had been tipped to replace the club's greatest ever goalscorer.
They were part of the same Rangers squad, briefly, however, Darren Fitzgerald wasn't able to make the step from prolific youth team to become an Ibrox favourite, as many had expected.
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When Darren Fitzgerald was Rangers’ next Ally McCoist
Capped at youth level for Northern Ireland, Fitzgerald's name was a regular sight in the now defunct club publication Rangers News – not to be confused with this Rangers News.
It seemed like for three seasons, the talented teen's name would be on the scoresheet for the Under-18s and then the reserve team in a similar way to that of Rory Wilson before his move to Aston Villa.
For those not old enough to remember, the reserve league used to be a mixture of youngsters progressing through the ranks, youngsters on the fringes of the first team but who maybe quite weren't there yet and senior players returning from injury or who needed minutes.
There was a lot of experience in the reserve league and it was as good as going out on loan in the Championship for a Rangers youngster.
Why the hype around Fitzgerald? Goals. Pure and simple. Hitting 50 a season will always attract attention and the calls for a promotion never went away.
Sadly for the young striker though, Walter Smith, the then Gers boss, didn't need to promote from within.
For example, in the 1996/97 season that saw Fitzgerald make his only senior appearance for Rangers, Smith could call upon McCoist, Mark Hateley, Gordon Durie, Erik Bo Andersen, Peter van Vossen, Sebastian Rozental and Brian Laudrup.
How much time does a youngster get with seven international forwards to choose from?
What happened to Fitzgerald?
Fitzgerald saw another three years at Rangers but ended up returning home to Northern Ireland and to play for Glentoran for a few seasons.
His youth and reserve team strike rate was never seen again and he was last seen playing with semi-professional side Ards.
It's a tale as old as time, there is no doubt that Fitzgerald had the potential to replace McCoist, after all, the goals are the same size at Ibrox as they are on the training pitch.
But only a time machine would be able to answer if he'd have made the position his own with a run of games supplied by Laudrup and Paul Gascoigne.
